Wife of Egypt's ousted leader makes 1st appearance

   
The wife of Egypt's ousted president Mohammed Morsi has addressed thousands of his supporters at a protest camp in Cairo, where she vowed: "He is coming back, God willing."                  
Naglaa Mahmoud made her first appearance Thursday since the July 3 military coup, which followed mass rallies demanding her husband's removal from office. He's been held incommunicado since then.                  

Speaking on a makeshift stage, she delivered what she described as "good news," saying, "We are victorious" and Egypt "is Islamic."                 

This as bitterly divided Egyptians prayed in public and children played as they celebrated the Eid al-Fitr holiday on Thursday.          

But the barbed wire and armored vehicles in the streets of downtown Cairo and the barricades around Islamist protest camps attested to the dangerous political edge to the festivities.                 
Rival supporters of ousted Egyptian President Morsi and the new army-installed government converged on separate sites in the capital of the Arab world's most populous nation against the background of crisis.        

Families flocked to dawn prayers at the Rabaa al-Adawiya   mosque, focal point of Islamist opposition to the government, then strolled and picnicked around the area.                 

Egypt has been dangerously polarized with Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood and its loyalists demanding his reinstatement and the government and its supporters saying they are finished.                
Tension has prevailed at the Brotherhood protest camps after the security forces threatened to dismantle them. Protesters have erected sandbag-and-brick barricades and armed themselves with sticks to confront any attack.            

Israel shuts Eilat airport:      

Israel has shut its Eilat airport near Egypt's Sinai peninsula until further notice following an order from the military, Israel Radio said on Thursday. 
          
The Israeli Aviation Authority confirmed the air field had been closed for landings, in a step coinciding with heightened security concerns about Islamist militant activity in the Sinai.          

Israel said last month that it had boosted its rocket defenses near its southern border with Egypt to counter possible attacks from militants fighting Egyptian forces in the Sinai.            

Violence in the Sinai has surged since the army ousted Islamist President Mohamed Morsi on July 3, with almost daily assaults reported in the vast desert expanse.


AP/REUTERS