Shots fired at Egypt tourist hotel

A gang of youths hurled fireworks and fired birdshot at police guarding a hotel near Cairo's pyramids on Thursday where Arab Israelis were staying.

The interior ministry said unknown assailants had gathered outside the hotel and carried out the attack, which it said targeted police guarding the hotel, who fired back.

One of the attackers was arrested, it added.

The ministry said no one was hurt in the incident at the Three Pyramids Hotel, but the attack damaged the hotel's facade and also a bus parked in front of the building.

Hotel employee Yasser Fakhreddin said "15 to 20 young people wearing masks threw fireworks and fired birdshot at the glass facade of the hotel as well as the windows of an empty bus waiting to pick up the Arab Israeli tourists".

A security official who declined to be named said 40 Arab Israelis had been due to board the bus but were still inside the hotel when the attack took place.

	The hotel's facade and a bus parked in front of the building were both damaged

An AFP photographer said bits of the facade and the bus's windows had been broken.

Egypt, which has fought several wars with Israel, is one of only two Arab nations, along with Jordan, to have signed a peace treaty with the Jewish state.

The country has been roiled by mainly extremist violence since the army ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013.

However, the attacks, many of them deadly, have focused on security forces in reprisal for a fierce crackdown on Morsi supporters.

The attack came as the country's Coptic Christian minority was celebrating Christmas.

Police have been out in force across Egypt to protect churches during the holiday period.