Petrol bombs were hurled during clashes between sup-porters of President Mohamed Mursi and his opponents outside his presidential palace.
The clashes erupted after the Muslim Brotherhood, the group that helped Mr Mursi win a presidential election in June, told its supporters to go to the palace where opponents had gathered to protest against the president's expanded powers.
Brotherhood supporters said they were shot at during the clashes, where rival sides brawled and threw stones at each other. One protester showed blood pouring from what he said was a gunshot wound to his leg.
Egyptian opposition leader Amr Moussa said Mr Mursi should make a formal offer for dialogue to end a crisis over the constitution, after the vice-president set out what he described as personal ideas to resolve the row.
Opposition politicians met to respond to the proposals laid out by Vice-President Mahmoud Mekky, who presented his ideas to reporters at the presidential palace. Outside the compound, Mr Mursi's opponents and supporters scuffled with each other.
"We are ready when there is something formal, something expressed in definite terms; we will not ignore it, especially if there is something useful," Mr Moussa said, adding he was holding talks with other politicians.
He said the terms used by Mr Mekky to describe his ideas meant they could not be con-sidered a formal or official offer with presidential backing.
Mr Moussa is a member of an opposition alliance, the National Salvation Front, which includes several prominent figures such as former UN nuclear agency chief and Nobel peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei.
Another member of the alliance, Abdel Ghaffar Shokr, head of the Popular Socialist Coalition Party, said the opposition would issue a statement to respond to Mr Mekky. "Until now, we still hold our position that the decree should be cancelled and the constitution should be delayed," he said, referring to Mr Mursi's decree on November 22 that gave him extraordinary powers.
Mr Mekky said amendments to disputed articles could be agreed with the opposition.
A written agreement could then be submitted to the next parliament, to be elected after a referendum on the constitution on December 15.
On those ideas, Mr Shokr said it would be unusual for a con-stitution to be amended after just two months. A senior Muslim Brotherhood official said the ideas needed to be "crystallised".
Mr Mursi said he had expanded his powers to prevent courts still full of judges appointed by ousted strongman Hosni Mubarak from derailing a con-stitution meant to complete a political transition in Egypt, long a strategic ally of Washington and signatory to a 1979 peace deal with Israel.
During the clashes between rival groups outside the presidential palace, Islamist supporters of Mr Mursi tore down tents erected by leftist opponents, who had begun a sit-in.
"They hit us and destroyed our tents. Are you happy, Mursi? Aren't we Egyptians too?" asked one protester, Haitham Ahmed.
Opposition supporters streamed away from the palace as hundreds of Islamists arrived, shouting "God is greatest. The people support the president's decision."
Facing the gravest crisis of his six-month-old tenure, Mr Mursi has shown no sign of buckling, confident Islamists can win the referendum and a parliamentary election to follow.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said dialogue was urgently needed on the new constitution, which should "respect the rights of all citizens".
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article