Egypt's interim Prime Minister is defending the military crackdown on the two Muslim Brotherhood protest camps in Cairo, which according to the government has claimed at least 235 lives; Muslim Brotherhood sources claim the death toll is much higher.

PM Hazem Beblawi went on TV to say it was not an easy decision to disperse the supporters of deposed president Mohammed Morsi, after several weeks of repeated warnings.  The military apparently planned to ring the camps and choke them off, allowing the protesters to disperse on their own. 

But the government provided TV footage showing what it said were Muslim Brotherhood gunmen provoking the violence by opening fire on police.  The military was more than a match for that; it had snipers on the rooftops and bulldozers to take down the camps in minutes.  Buildings, tents, cars were all set ablaze.

After the early morning camp clearing operation, violence between supporters and opponents of Morsi spread throughout the city and beyond to other areas.  The government imposed a curfew in 14 provinces across the country along with a month-long state of emergency.

Egypt's interim vice president and former United Nations nuclear agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei quit the government in protest of the crackdown, writing in his resignation later, “As you know, I saw that there were peaceful ways to end this clash in society, there were proposed and acceptable solutions for beginnings that would take us to national consensus.”

ElBaradei, a Nobel peace prize winner and co-leader of the secular National Salvation Front (NSF), was the most prominent reformer in the transitional team; many other reformers chose to stay with the government.