<div><p>An Israeli illusionist gave an icy reception to the New Year, emerging at midnight from 66 hours in an 8-tonne block of ice, breaking the record of American magician David Blaine.</p><p>Hezi Dean, 29, had himself sealed into a specially constructed transparent ice cube in Tel Aviv's Rabin Square, where he apparently stayed for nearly three days wearing just jeans and a thin T-shirt.</p><p>At the stroke of the New Year, assistants cut open the ice block and removed a weak-looking Dean, taking him straight to a waiting ambulance, according to an AFP photographer.</p><p>His condition was not immediately clear.</p><p>Some 200 onlookers celebrated the arrival of the new decade with Dean, many of the them carrying signs -- from the encouraging "Hezi the great," to the more practical "Don't die Hezi Dean."</p><p>Dean had been attempting to break the record of David Blaine, who spent 63 hours in a similar ice cube in New York's Times Square in 2000.</p><img src="http://admatch-syndication.mochila.com/images/ad.gif?aid=66187079&bid=informcom" /></div><div id="copyright"><div>

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