A military drill between six Red Sea countries was launched in Saudi Arabia on Sunday, according to the kingdom’s official SPA news agency.

The Red Wave 1 exercise brings together naval forces from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Sudan, Yemen and Djibouti. Observers from Somalia are also taking part in the drill.

“The exercise aims to strengthen maritime security of the countries bordering the Red Sea, protect territorial waters, enhance military cooperation and exchange combat expertise,” commander of Saudi Arabia’s Western Fleet, Major-General Saqr bin Mohammed al-Harbi, said.

The military drill is scheduled to continue until Thursday.

Egyptian archaeologists have discovered the tomb of a priest dating back more than 4,400 years in the pyramid complex of Saqqara south of the capital Cairo, authorities said Saturday.

"Today we are announcing the last discovery of the year 2018, it's a new discovery, it's a private tomb," Antiquities Minister Khaled el-Enany told an audience of invited guests including reporters.

"It is exceptionally well preserved, coloured, with sculpture inside. It belongs to a high official priest... (and) is more than 4,400 years old," he said.

The tomb belongs to "Wahtye", a high priest who served during the fifth dynasty reign of King Neferirkare, the antiquities ministry said.

Egypt has restricted the sale of yellow reflective vests to deter regime opponents from mimicking French protesters, as a copycat movement, dubbed the “red vests”, launched in nearby Tunisia.

The new measures in Egypt were quietly put in place ahead of next month’s seventh anniversary of the country’s Arab Spring uprising, as officials fear protests could erupt against the military-led government.

Security officials and retailers reported that industrial safety equipment dealers are now not permitted to sell the yellow vests to walk-in buyers, the “gilets jaunes” worn by French protesters in recent rallies and riots. Sellers are restricted to doing wholesale business deals with verified companies as long as they secure police permission. The officials told Associated Press (AP) told offenders would be punished but did not elaborate.

The Minister of Electricity and Renewable Energy, Mohamed Shaker, and head of the Nuclear Power Plant Authority Amjad al-Wakeel, will hold a meeting with officials of the Russian company Rosatom on the sidelines of President Abdul Fattah El-Sisi’s visit to Moscow.

Shaker told Daily News Egypt that the operation of the Dabaa nuclear station is proceeding normally, and the project needs time to implement, and denied the reported cancellation of the contract. “Rumours are absolutely untrue. We agreed on a timetable and identified the cost and completed the work on the project,” he stressed.

The meeting will include the follow-up of the current position of the Dabaa Nuclear Plant Project, which is being implemented, and reviewing the characteristics of the project, the specifications of the selection of companies participating in the operational work of the station, as well as setting the timetable for the implementation of the project.

Gaza's Health Ministry says 32 Palestinians have been wounded by Israeli fire during a mass protest along the beach near the Israeli frontier.

Protesters threw flaming tires over the fence Monday, while fishing boats hoisted Palestinian flags. Israeli forces responded with tear gas and live fire.

The ruling Hamas militant group has been staging border protests for the past six months in hopes of easing a crippling Israeli-Egyptian blockade.

The only promise that is new about the promised peace plan is the way it will be forced on the Palestinians: no one has promised that the plan itself will be new. With Saudi Arabia and Egypt—the outside—brought onside with the promise of continued military aid despite their crimes against humanity and violations of international law and the Palestinians weakened by being silenced, economically crushed and stripped of any friends to help them, the United States and Israel are now free to attempt to impose a peace plan on the Palestinians.

The Israeli news website Wallah revealed yesterday that the Egyptian delegation which visited Gaza on Saturday passed a message from Israel to Hamas, Al-Wattan Voice reported.

The Egyptians, the news website said, told Hamas that Israel is asking for an end to the demonstrations taking place near the fence along the eastern side of the Gaza Strip and to halt flying incendiary balloons.

According to the Israeli website the Egyptian intelligence delegation met with the Hamas leadership in Gaza and passed on the Israeli demands.

Years later, when I became an avid reader of history and military texts, it became clear to me that the collective Shoah dread into which we immersed ourselves was a manifestation of Jewish pre traumatic stress disorder (Pre TSD). We were tormented by a phantasmic fear. Neither the Syrians nor the Egyptian armies had plans to ‘destroy Israel,’ wipe out the Jewish state or ‘throw the Jews into the sea’. Their military objectives were, in fact, very limited. Neither the Egyptians nor the Syrians wished to expand their military ground operation beyond a few miles into the Sinai and the Golan Heights. Both Arab armies were dependent on Soviet ground to air missiles that severely limited Israeli air superiority above the battlefield. The Soviet missile umbrella provided about 10 miles of anti air cover and the Arab armies had no intent to proceed beyond that ‘safe’ zone.

: An Egyptian criminal court ordered the arrest of ousted President Hosni Mubarak's two sons on charges of stock market manipulation, state news agency MENA reported Saturday.

Alaa and Gamal Mubarak, with seven other men, are accused of violating stock market and central bank rules to make unlawful profits through dealing in shares of Al Watany Bank of Egypt.

They deny any wrongdoing.

Three other men including Yasser El Mallawany and Hassan Heikal, current and former board members respectively at Egyptian investment bank EFG-Hermes, were also arrested, a judicial source said.

The advisory also warns military activities linked to the bloody conflict in Syria have been ramped across Iran's airspace.

Tensions between Tehran and Washington are running high following Donald Trump’s controversial decision to pull out of the landmark Iran nuclear deal re-introduce economic sanctions last month.

Flight Service Bureau, which provides safety information on airspace to airlines, said "without seeming alarmist", the deteriorating relationship between the US and Iran must be taken into account when planning flights in Iran's airspace.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has authorised the release of $1.2 billion in military aid to Egypt, overriding previous human rights concerns that had held up funding.

The figure includes $1 billion for the current 2018 budget year and $195 million earmarked for 2017 which would have been returned to the treasury had it not been spent by the end of the month.

The State Department informed Congress of the move on Friday; congressmen have 15 days to contest the national security waivers allowing the money, known as foreign military financing (FMF), to be delivered.

In July, Pompeo also lifted $195 million in FMF that was originally listed for 2016, but which former secretary of state Rex Tillerson had frozen due to the continuing concerns over the state of human rights under Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi.

Rows of military vehicles are staged to be loaded on a barge at the Port of Shuaiba, Kuwait, Aug. 25, 2018. The vehicles will be shipped to Egypt for Bright Star 2018, a multilateral U.S. Central Command training exercise, held with the Arab Republic of Egypt in Egypt.

Egypt’s military says it will host war games with U.S. troops next month for the second straight year.

Thursday's statement from the military's spokesman says the "Bright Star" exercise will run from Sept. 8-20.

U.S. Central Command said in a Thursday statement that approximately 800 U.S. troops will participate.

Egypt has allowed “some 250 tonnes of domestic gas” to Gaza nearly a month after Israel shut down its only goods crossing and prevented the transfer of fuel into the strip, a Palestinian official told Anadolu news agency on Sunday.

The agency quoted Khalil Shakfa, the head of the General Authority of Petroleum, saying that “some 250 tonnes of domestic gas has been allowed into Gaza.”

Meanwhile, Sky News Arabia reported that “11 trucks of domestic gas on Monday entered Gaza through Salah al-Din Gate, located near Rafah crossing,” according to sources.

However, the Egyptian authorities have not confirmed or denied the reports yet.

Egypt bears as much responsibility for the Gaza Strip as Israel does, an Israeli cabinet minister said on Monday, in remarks that could upset Cairo as it tries to avoid being drawn back into the Palestinian enclave while brokering truce talks there.

In parallel to UN mediation, Egypt has used its contacts with both Israel and the dominant Palestinian Islamist group Hamas to discuss ways of calming a more than the three-month-old surge in confrontations along the Gaza-Israel border.

But some Egyptian officials say they would resist any attempt by Israel, or its US ally, to shift to Cairo the onus for addressing Gaza’s long-term governance or economic problems.

Cairo – The oil and gas resources that Egypt could benefit from are just talk and cannot even be exploited as Israel manipulates these resources and seeks to maintain its control over them by all means possible.

When Israel undertook security measures to protect gas fields in the Mediterranean Sea, including renting a military unit in Cyprus until 2016, it ignited a crisis regarding the right to exploit the oil and gas fields in the Mediterranean. Due to the fact that Israel established the Iron Dome missile defense system to intercept missiles along its coast and off its territorial waters, in addition to its intelligence activities, it was able to monitor the work being done in these economically viable waters.

An Egyptian court has sentenced 75 people to death for participating in a 2013 protest against the overthrow of the country's democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi.

Senior members of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood organisation were among those ordered executed by the Cairo Criminal Court on Saturday for their involvement with the sit-in demonstration at Rabaa Square in the Egyptian capital, Cairo.

The rulings will be referred to Egypt's chief Islamic legal authority, the Grand Mufti, for a non-binding opinion.

Egyptian law requires any capital sentence to be referred to the Grand Mufti before any execution can take place.

When she went to Egypt for vacation, Mona el-Mazbouh surely didn’t expect to end up in prison. But after the 24-year-old Lebanese tourist posted a video in which she complained of sexual harassment—calling Egypt a lowly, dirty country and its citizens “pimps and prostitutes”—el-Mazbouh was arrested at Cairo’s airport and found guilty of deliberately spreading false rumors that would harm society, attacking religion, and public indecency. She was sentenced to eight years in prison.

The video that el-Mazbouh posted was ten minutes long, and went viral on Facebook, causing an uproar in Egypt. In the video, el-Mazbouh also expressed anger about poor restaurant service during Ramadan and complained of her belongings being stolen. Egyptian men and women posted videos in response to her original video, prompting el-Mazbouh to delete the original video and post a second video on Facebook apologizing to Egyptians.

An unofficial ceasefire reached overnight Friday-Saturday between Israel and Hamas came after Egypt warned the Palestinian terror group that Israel would launch a war “in two hours” if Hamas responded to IDF retaliatory strikes in Gaza following the killing of an IDF soldier by Palestinian sniper fire, Israeli television reported Saturday.

Channel 10 news also reported that Egypt threatened to impose sanctions on Hamas if it does not end the launch of incendiary airborne devices toward Israeli territory.

In return for honoring these conditions, Hamas demanded Israel ease restrictions on the flow of goods into Gaza, the report said. Hamas also called for Egypt to keep open the Rafah border crossing and to press Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to pay the salaries of PA employees in Gaza.

Last week, Egyptian President Abd al-Fatah al-Sisi announced the opening of the Rafah border crossing with Gaza for the entire month of Ramadan, which he said was “in order to ensure the easing of the burdens on the brothers in the Gaza Strip.”

The crossing, which serves as the main gateway to the outside world for the 2 million Palestinians besieged in Gaza, has remained largely closed since Sisi’s rise to power.

We spoke to several Palestinians — students going abroad to study or in search of jobs, people traveling to reunite with families, and injured protesters seeking treatment in Jordan — as they waited for their chance to leave Gaza. The journey out of Gaza is far from simple, as only a select number of Palestinians with permission are allowed to leave.

A large Egyptian aid convoy carrying medicines and food supplies crossed the borders on its way to the Gaza Strip upon instructions by President Abdel Fattah El Sisi as part of efforts to ease the sufferings of the brotherly Palestinian people in the restive beleaguered enclave.

The convoy which was welcomed by the Palestinian side after entering into the Palestinian side of the borders heading for Gaza, includes medical supplies badly needed by the Palestinian hospitals.

President Sisi issued directives to keep Rafah land border crossing open throughout the holy fasting month of Ramadan to alleviate the sufferings of Gazans after violent escalations that followed the US relocation of its Israeli embassy to Jerusalem on Monday.

Egypt and Israel have blocked Turkish aircraft from using their airports to transport thousands of Palestinians wounded by Israeli troops during protests in Gaza, Turkey’s deputy prime minister has said.

Recep Akdag made the announcement on Wednesday, state-run Anadolu Agency reported, amid a growing rift between Ankara and Tel Aviv over Israeli massacres of Palestinian protesters.

Israeli forces killed at least 60 Palestinians and wounded over 3,000 others mostly with live gunfire on Monday during protests against the transfer of the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Israeli forces shot dead two more protesters on Tuesday as Palestinians marked the Nakba, or “catastrophe”, commemorating the more than 700,000 Palestinians who were expelled in the 1948 war.

Since border protests and clashes began on March 30, 116 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire across the Gaza Strip.

But there’s a stupendous historical irony to Israel’s manufactured outrage: Israel itself claimed that a far less stringent embargo by Egypt in 1967 was a legitimate casus belli for Israel to attack Egypt (which led to Israel seizing control of Gaza and eventually imposing the embargo on it).

Israel opened fire first during the Six-Day War on June 5, 1967, with an air and land attack on Egypt. But, Israel declared, Egypt had actually started the war several weeks before, when it blockaded the Straits of Tiran, which prevented Israel from shipping goods through the Red Sea.

But if it were legal for Israel to bomb and invade Egypt in 1967 and then occupy Palestinian land for decades, it logically follows that Palestinians in Gaza have had the right to attack and occupy Israel ever since the Israeli blockade began in 2007. Fair’s fair.

Palestinian protests on the Gaza-Israel border have dropped off over the past two days, with Israel on Wednesday citing “Egyptian efforts” to restore calm after dozens of Palestinians were killed by Israeli gunfire. Gaza’s dominant Islamist Hamas movement denied that it was under pressure from neighboring Egypt to scale back the six-week-old demonstrations, Reuters reports.

Russia views positively Egypt’s decision against sending its troops to Syria as was proposed by Washington, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said after negotiations between Russian and Egyptian foreign and defense ministers in the 2+2 format on Monday.

“We touched upon this issue in the context of discussing the Syria situation, in the context of discussing actions of the so-called foreign players, including, of course, the United States, because it is precisely its idea to invite Arab countries to send their contingents to the Syrian Arab Republic,” the Russian foreign minister said.

Even by the standards of Egypt’s dirty war the video circulating this week of a young boy pleading for his mother moments before he was shot in central Sinai was heartbreaking.

When it comes to Egypt we hear a lot of figures – 60,000 political prisoners, 1,000 protesters massacred in a single day, 378 enforced disappearances in a year – but as the numbers climb we have become desensitised to the scale of oppression taking place in this North African country, once celebrated for its Arab Spring uprising.

The video of the young boy reminds us how horribly wrong it all went, and that behind each and every extrajudicial killing carried out by Egyptian authorities there is a person with a family, a life, a world.

Nearly everyone loses by President Donald Trump’s decision on Tuesday to withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) relating to Iran’s nuclear energy program and to reinstate the “highest level” of sanctions while also threatening secondary sanctions on any country that “helps” the Iranians. The whole world loses because nuclear proliferation is a disaster waiting to happen and Iran will now have a strong incentive to proceed with a weapons program to defend itself from Israel and the United States. If Iran does so, it will trigger a regional nuclear arms race with Saudi Arabia and Egypt undoubtedly seeking weapons of their own.

Former Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul-Gheit has for the first time confirmed that Israel has on numerous times requested land swaps in an effort to resolve the Palestine-Israel conflict, Arabi21 reported yesterday.

Aboul-Gheit, who is currently the secretary of the Arab League, revealed he witnessed the land swap request that was repeated four times. He did not say who else requested the land swap.

“There were some illusions between 2003 and 2006,” he said, while giving a speech for the Egyptian army marking the liberation of Sinai. “I was a witness to these requests when I was a foreign minister. They said: Let’s exchange lands with you.”

Cairo Administrative Court referred on Tuesday a lawsuit demanding the suspension of the approval of natural gas imports from Israel, for violating the Egyptian Constitution and Law No 196 of 2017 regulating the gas market to the State Council Commissioner Authority (SCCA).

The lawsuit alleges that allowing natural gas imports from the “Zionist entity” endangers the national security of the country, carries a negative impact on the Egyptian economy, and threatens societal peace, which rejects normalisation Israel.

In a result that comes as no shock to Egyptians and the rest of the world, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has won the presidential elections with 97 percent of the votes, final results showed, securing another four-year term.

The elections were criticised as a one-man show with no credible opposition, as at least six other candidates pulled out, were prosecuted, or jailed.

Past economic agreements with Israel have been controversial in Egypt, where support for the Palestinians runs high. But this major gas deal adds to growing strategic and diplomatic ties between the countries.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has been reelected for a second term with 92 percent of the vote, preliminary results showed on Thursday, but turnout of just 40 percent dented his push for popular legitimacy.

Israel would be facing terror attacks from the Sinai without the border fence, but even worse, says Netanyahu, the entry of over a million migrants

Egyptian military employs electronic warfare measures against terrorists in Sinai, blocking cell reception in southern Israel; Israeli military and political officials in talks with counterparts in Cairo in effort to resolve the three-weeks-long crisis, so far unsuccessfully.

Less than two weeks before the Israeli energy giant Delek Drilling announced a $15 billion deal to pump natural gas to Egypt, one of its board members, Malcolm Hoenlein, told a newspaper that the United States should be “standing up for” Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, despite his troubling human rights record.

“You can criticize and you can push for human rights and do all those things,” Hoenlein said. “At the same time you’ve got to recognize the realities that these countries face.”

Hoenlein did not speak to the newspaper as a Delek Drilling board member. Instead, he spoke in his more familiar role: as the prominent leader of one of the American Jewish community’s most powerful foreign and domestic policy advocacy groups. As the head of the not-for-profit Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Hoenlein has represented American Jews in meetings with the top levels of Israeli, Arab and U.S. political leadership for decades.

Israel and Saudi Arabia have reportedly held secret talks in Egypt’s capital, Cairo. According to reports, the Cairo talks dealt with several issues, including economic interests. The secret negotiations signal that Israel is no longer the greatest enemy in the region.

Slowly, surely and increasingly openly, Abdulfattah al-Sisi, the Egyptian president, is moving his country closer to Israel.

This week, it was a $15 billion gas deal that will see Delek, an Israeli company, supply Egypt with natural gas over a 10-year period.

A “joyous day,” Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, proclaimed when the news broke.

“We have scored a key goal,” echoed al-Sisi a few days later as he tried to distance his government from the deal by emphasizing, in what the egypt today website characterized as an “important speech,” that this was purely a private sector deal.

The US has blocked Franco-Egyptian negotiations on the sale of additional Rafale fighter jets to the Egyptian Air Force by refusing to export an American component aboard the Scalp cruise missile, French outlet La Tribune reported.

Alexandre Vautravers, an official at the Geneva Center for Security Policy (GCSP), discussed with Sputnik the impact of US companies being in the chain of contractors on European military suppliers.

"It would be great if France's manufacturing industry could produce entirely French products, but we should take into account the development cost of each component in a complicated missile like Scalp. What if no country can afford purchasing these missiles," Vautravers said.

Israel has joined forces with Egypt's military to smash ISIS militants in Nothern Sinai.

Unmarked Israeli drones, helicopters and jets have carried out a covert air campaign to rid Egypt of Islamic terrorists, for more than two years.

The Foreign Ministry of Egypt condemned the Turkish state’s “unacceptable” attack on Afrin, calling it an intervention against and violation of Syrian lands.

In a statement about the operation, the Foreign Ministry pointed out that Turkey negatively affected the political efforts for the ending of terror in Syria, saying; “The attitude of Egypt towards military methods is clear as attacks against our Syrian brothers and sisters are increasing.”

On the other hand, Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, Frants Klintseviç stated that “Russia will ask Turkey to end its operation on Afrin at the United Nations.”

In a Facebook post about the invasion attempt, top Russian official Konstantin Kosaçev said; “Disturbing news are coming from Syria. The “Anti-terrorist operation” announced by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an causes nothing but concern.”

Hundreds of Muslim demonstrators have stormed a Coptic church in Egypt calling for it to be demolished.

A hostile mob wreaked havoc in the building by wrecking sacred objects and attacking worshippers after gathering outside during Friday prayers.

During the brief siege the demonstrators chanted offensive slogans and called for the church's demolition, the diocese in Atfih said.

The wounded were transferred to a nearby hospital after security guards dispersed the mob. The nature of their injuries is not known.

Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said before an urgent meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Istanbul on Wednesday that Egypt will be at the forefront in confronting any attempts to circumvent the realisation of historic and legal Palestinians rights.

Shoukry said that the stability of the region and the world will be affected by any ill-conceived moves on Jerusalem, reaffirming Cairo’s rejection of last week's decision by US President Donald Trump to recognise the city as the capital of Israel.

Moscow and Cairo signed an agreement on Thursday for Russia to build a nuclear power plant in Egypt, with Russia extending a loan to Egypt to cover the cost of construction.

A spokesman for Russia’s state-owned nuclear firm Rosatom said the plant, Egypt’s first, would be built at Dabaa in the north of the country and was expected to be completed by 2022.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, speaking on state TV, gave few details but said the project would involve the building of a ‘third-generation’ plant with four reactors.

Efforts are underway in Jordan and Egypt to persuade authorities to change the names of the streets in both countries where American embassies are located, in response to US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

One of Egypt’s top Muslim leaders, the Imam of Al Azhar mosque, rejected a meeting requested by U.S. Vice President Mike Pence in protest against a U.S. decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, Al Azhar said in a statement on Friday.

Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb had rejected a request from the United States for Pence to meet him on Dec. 20 at Al Azhar saying President Donald Trump must reverse his decision on Jerusalem.

The head of Egypt's Coptic Church, Pope Tawadros II, has called off a meeting with US Vice President Mike Pence scheduled to be held in the capital Cairo later this month in protest at Washington's recognition of Jerusalem al-Quds as Israel's capital.

US President Donald Trump's decision "did not take into account the feelings of millions of Arab people," Egypt's Coptic Church said in a statement on Saturday.

"The Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Church declines to receive American Vice President Mike Pence," the statement added.

The Grand Imam of Egypt's al-Azhar Mosque, the country's highest Islamic authority, has canceled a meeting with US Vice President Mike Pence in the wake of an announcement by US President Donald Trump that Washington will recognize Jerusalem al-Quds as Israel’s capital.

Al-Azhar said in a statement on Friday that Ahmed al-Tayeb had changed his previous decision to meet with Pence, who would travel to Egypt and Israel in late December.

The grand imam announced "his categorical rejection of a formal request from US Vice President Mike Pence to meet with him on December 20," the al-Azhar statement said.

The leading Protestant Christian in Egypt insisted on Friday that Jerusalem is a Palestinian Arab city, Anadolu has reported. “It is inevitable that it will return to Palestinian sovereignty,” added Reverend Dr Andrea Zaki, the President of the Protestant Community of Egypt and General Director of the Coptic Evangelical Organisation for Social Services.

Rev. Zaki called for the nations and states which care about peace to work towards maintaining the Arab identity of Jerusalem because it is the place of the three monotheistic faiths of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. “The American decision has hurt the feelings of millions of Arabs, Muslims and Christians,” he pointed out. “This decision will never change the fact that Jerusalem is occupied.”

According to the senior theologian, he has been in constant contact with international church organisations in an effort to mobilise support for the Palestinians “at this decisive moment” and “to reiterate that Jerusalem is an Arab city.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin, already scheduled to visit Egypt on December 11, will travel to Turkey on the same day for talks with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Putin and Erdogan plan to discuss bilateral issues, including joint energy projects, as well as the conflict in Syria and the broader situation in the Middle East, the Kremlin said.

Egypt rejected the U.S. decision to move its embassy to Jerusalem, the foreign ministry said on Wednesday.

It added that Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital did not change the city’s legal status.

Hundreds of Egyptians demonstrated on Friday in the capital Cairo and the Mediterranean city of Alexandria against US decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Hundreds protested at Cairo's Al-Azhar mosque following weekly Friday prayers, raising signs and chanting slogans supporting the Palestinians and their right to establish an independent state and affirming Jerusalem's Arab and Islamic identity, Egypt's state-run news agency MENA reported.

In Alexandria, dozens protested at the Al-Qaed Ibrahim mosque in the central part of the coastal city, burning an Israeli flag and chanting "Jerusalem is Arab".

Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit Egypt on Monday, the Kremlin’s press service has said. He will meet with President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to discuss the situation in North Africa and the Middle East, TASS reported, citing the statement. The two presidents will also discuss the development of bilateral ties in political, economic and humanitarian areas, the press service said on Thursday.

“America has proven it is not neutral in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and has revealed its complete bias in favour of the Israelis. We must stop looking at the US as a neutral party to resolve the conflict. It would be more honourable for the US, if it has any honour left, to sit on the Israeli side of the table in any future negotiations.”

The Sinai Peninsula is an Egyptian territory located east of the country. It borders Gulf of Aqaba from the east, Gulf of Suez from the west, the Mediterranean Sea from the north, and the Red Sea from the south. Home to a population of about 800,000, the Sinai is of strategic position as it covers a considerable part of the Egyptian coasts, beside linking the two continents of Asia and Africa.

The significance of this Egyptian land becomes clear if we know that there have been many disputes over it. The two important sides of the disputes are Egypt and the Israeli regime. The importance of the Sinai is high to a degree that so far Tel Aviv twice invaded it, not to mention the many measures taken by the Israelis on the global diplomatic stage to bring it under their control.

Deal to allow countries to use each other's military airstrips would see Moscow increase foothold in North Africa and Middle East

Former Egyptian Premier Ahmed Shafiq said on Wednesday the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was preventing him from travelling to his country after he announced his plans to run in Egypt’s presidential elections next year.

In an exclusive interview with Qatar-based Al Jazeera television, Shafiq — the last prime minister from Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak era — said he was satisfied with his residence in the UAE but complained that Emirati authorities were not allowing him to travel to Egypt.

Egyptian authorities have delayed the opening of the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, citing security concerns, Reuters reports. The move followed a terrorist attack targeting a mosque in northern Sinai that claimed the lives of at least 235 people. The border was scheduled to re-open for three days to facilitate travel from both sides.

Militants have launched a bomb and gun attack on a mosque in Egypt's North Sinai province, killing 235 people, state media say.

Witnesses say the al-Rawda mosque in the town of Bir al-Abed, near al-Arish, was targeted during Friday prayers.

It is the deadliest attack of its kind since an Islamist insurgency in the peninsula was stepped up in 2013.

Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi has held emergency talks with security officials to decide how to respond.

What happened?

Local police said gunmen arrived in four off-road vehicles and bombed the packed mosque before opening fire on worshippers, the Associated Press reported.
Pictures from the scene show rows of bloodied victims inside the mosque. At least 100 people were wounded, reports say.
"They were shooting at people as they left the mosque," a local resident who had relatives there told Reuters news agency. "They were shooting at the ambulances too."

AT least 200 people have been killed after militants bombed a Sufi mosque and fired on worshippers in Egypt’s volatile Sinai Peninsula during Friday prayers.

The extremists attacked the al-Rawdah mosque in the town of Bir al-Abed, 25 miles from the North Sinai provincial capital of el-Arish, opening fire from four off-road vehicles on worshippers inside during the sermon.

The attack, which has left more than 100 others injured, appears to be the latest by the area’s Islamic State affiliate.

Police officers said victims were being transferred to local hospitals and militants had blocked escape routes from the area by blowing up cars and leaving the burning wrecks blocking the roads.

The attack was the largest single targeting of Egyptian civilians and the first on a large mosque congregation since the IS affiliate began its campaign of violence against the state following the military’s 2013 overthrow of an elected but divisive Islamist president.

Nimrud Suleiman from the Moscow platform said that he was unaware of the reasons behind the decisions of the representatives to leave the meeting, adding that he had left it due to "political and ethical reasons."

According to Almustaqbal newspaper, which cites the Lebanese prime minister's press service, Saad Hariri will meet Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Sisi during his upcoming visit to Egypt.

Prime Minister Saad Hariri is expected to travel to Egypt and Kuwait before making his return to Lebanon, media reports said Sunday.

A convoy of cement trucks from an Egyptian army factory was attacked by militants linked to the Islamic State group in the central Sinai peninsula on Thursday.

Eight civilian employees and two soldiers were killed in the ambush, according to Egyptian state security officials.

Among the dead was Lieutenant Colonel Ibrahim Hussein Mohammed, who was attacked near the town of Nakhl, an anonymous security source told the Associated Press.

Egyptian security officials added that the militants stole the soldier's weapons and burnt the seven trucks.

Egypt's president has urged for calm in the region as tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran flare, saying it is not the right time to challenge Lebanese Shia group Hizballah.

Abdel Fattah al-Sisi made the appeal in an interview with CNBC over the weekend that aired on Tuesday morning.

"The stability of the region is very important and we all have to protect it... I am talking to all the parties in the region to preserve it," Sisi said.

Egyptian security officials say at least 55 policemen, including 20 officers and 34 conscripts, have been killed in a shootout during a raid on a militant hideout near Cairo.

Despite economic hardship, some Egyptians are asking President Sisi to stand for reelection
His popularity had dipped due to soaring consumer prices
However thousands have already signed up to the "To Build It" campaign
Still, opposition to his candidature remains fierce among others

Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has guided his nation into deep financial crisis, overseen the unpopular handover of two Red Sea islands and imprisoned thousands without trial.

The military general initially came to power in a coup overthrowing democratically elected Mohamed Morsi, with his presidency later confirmed in a landslide 2014 vote. Since then, dramatic rises in food and fuel costs, along with his regime's severe human rights abuses, have seen public discontent rise.

Despite all of this, some Egyptians just cannot get enough of their president.

A campaign to push Sisi to stand for reelection in the anticipated 2018 presidential elections has taken off online.