By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Hard-line students staged a small protest outside the Italian Embassy in what was seen as Iran's reply to the demonstration in Rome, planned for later Thursday, over the Iranian president's call for the destruction of Israel.
The demonstrators carried banners saying, "Israel should be wiped off and will be wiped off," a reference to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's saying last week that Israel should be "wiped off the map."
Only about 60 people took part in the demonstration, which was organized by the same group of hard-line students that has mounted recent protests outside the British and German embassies, condemning Western pressure on Iran to abandon its uranium enrichment program.