Egypt's armed forces has so far destroyed over 700 houses to create a "buffer zone" on the country's Easter border with the Palestinian Gaza Strip, a North Sinai official said on Wednesday.

A flurry of public statements about a new law aimed at redrawing Egypt's electoral constituencies has left the country's political parties divided. It has also left everyone confused about when Egypt's long-awaited parliamentary elections will be held, as the law is considered the last legislative obstacle before the polls can be held.

An Egyptian woman died on Tuesday of H5N1, bird flu, the second death from the virus in two days and the third this year, Al-Ahram Arabic news website reported.

The Armed Forces said it would increase the uninhabited security buffer zone to 1km, from 500 meters, at the border with Rafah, Youm7 reported.

President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi met with a delegation of 15 top European tour operators to discuss ways to boost tourism, said presidential spokesperson Alaa Youssef Monday.

Three Egyptian liberal and leftist political parties have retreated from joining a parliamentary electoral alliance formed by Hosni Mubarak-era minister Kamal El-Ganzouri.

Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies NGO Director Dalia Ziada issued her resignation from the center Saturday, saying her exit came following a disagreement with the center’s head and founder Saad Eddin Ibrahim about the “direction” the center was headed.

Egypt's interior ministry said on Monday that foreign intelligence was behind the recent attacks against Egypt's army in North Sinai and Damietta, state-run news agency MENA reported.

Famed Egyptian actor Khaled Abol Naga is facing a wave of criticism by TV figures known for their loyalty to the regime after footage of him emerged saying President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi should leave if he is unable to do his job.

Two Egyptian nationals were killed in Libya Saturday after a bomb fell on a bakery where they were working, Al-Masry Al-Youm reported Sunday.

Ahmed Maher, the jailed former head of the April 6 Youth Movement, has broken his hunger strike, the group said in a statement on Monday.

US-based Human Rights Watch criticized on Monday a law decreed by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in October that granted military courts wider jurisdiction to try civilians involved in assaults on state facilities or blocking roads, warning that the state “risks militarizing the prosecution of protesters and other government opponents.”

Five Egyptian students were transferred to a military court on Sunday on charges of rioting at a university, a judicial source said, weeks after a law was passed allowing military trials of civilians for damaging state property.

Navy forces, along with sovereign authorities, imposed strict security measures on a trade ship hoisting the Russian flag, that was found nearby during the attack against the Egyptian navy vessel off the Damietta coast.

The Cairo Criminal Court referred to investigation on Sunday the warden of the prison where hunger-striking detainee Mohamed Soltan is kept for his obstinacy in conducting a medical examination on Soltan and other detainees.

An Egyptian court of appeals postponed on Sunday the retrial of eight men accused of inciting debauchery and violating public decency after appearing in a Youtube video depicting an alleged homosexual marriage ceremony.

The crash of a microbus in the Upper Egyptian governorate of Sohag on Sunday left 17 schoolgirls injured and no deaths, a security official said.

A main source of revenue and foreign currency, tourism in Egypt has been battered as a result of political instability and violence over the past few years.

Eight Egyptian navy personnel are missing following an attack by militants on an armed forces boat in the Mediterranean, the army has said.

Egypt plans to repay all of the $4.9 billion debt owed to foreign oil and gas companies within six months, the oil ministry said on Thursday, a move it hopes will prompt them to step up exploration and ease the worst energy crunch in decades.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi issued on Wednesday a decree allowing the deportation of foreign defendants and convicts "whenever the [state's] supreme interest necessitates so."