Militants attacked a police checkpoint near a Mediterranean resort area frequented by Egyptian holidaymakers, killing five policemen and losing four of their own in the ensuing gunbattle, the Interior Ministry said on Wednesday.

Concern spread in Menoufia governorate Tuesday after eight people suspected of being infected with the Ebola virus were put under medical observation after arriving from Sierra Leone, Equatorial Guinea and Guinea, Al-Shorouk newspaper reported Wednesday.

Eleven people were sentenced to death and 11 others to life and one defendant was acquitted on Wednesday in the case involving the murder of a senior Giza police officer last September.

Disgraced Egyptian businessman Ahmed Ezz has been required to pay 252 million EGP ($35.2 million) in fines to be released from prison, but so far he has only managed to pay 152 million EGP, Youm7 reported Wednesday.

Three "terrorists" were killed in a security crackdown in North Sinai on Tuesday, an army spokesperson said in a statement published on armed forces official page.

Business activity in Egypt shrank in July, a survey showed on Tuesday, in a sign the economy remains fragile after cuts to energy subsidies last month led to lower demand and higher prices.

An American UN peacekeeper soldier has been shot at by unidentified gunmen in Sheikh Zowayed in North Sinai.

A new 72-km (45-mile) canal alongside to be built alongside the existing the Suez Canal is expected to cost $4 billion, the chairman of the Suez Canal Authority said on Tuesday.

Egypt has no intention of intervening militarily in Libya and is merely keen to safeguard its borders, the country's foreign minister has said.

An Egyptian court referred on Monday a challenge to a verdict lifting a ban on an Islamist charity organisation to the State Commissioners’ Authority.

A military source said on Sunday that the donation of Younis al-Masry, the commander of the Air Force, to the “Long Live Egypt” fund was in his personal capacity as a citizen and not as a military personnel.

Last Thursday, during a press briefing in Washington, DC, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf accused Egypt of using military weapons "against their own people." Badr Abdel-Atti, spokesman for Egypt's Foreign Ministry, fired back, describing the comments as "sheer fantasy," noting that they "fall short and are completely ignorant of realities of matters in Egypt."

The Palestinian Ministry of Interior say that Israel violated a seven-hour humanitarian ceasefire after at least 30 were injured in the shelling of a house in a refugee camp on the western coast of Gaza.

Around 2500 Egyptians have been evacuated from conflict-torn Libya to Tunisia in order to be flown back to Egypt, the country's foreign minister said in a press conference during his visit to Tunisia.

ISRAEL contemptuously rejected ceasefire talks at the weekend and instead renewed its murderous assault on Gaza.

Egypt is looking to borrow at least $1.5 billion from local and international banks in order to repay debt owed to foreign oil companies operating in the country, Oil Minister Sherif Ismail told Reuters on Sunday.

Thousands of Egyptians who have been seeking to flee strife-torn Libya for days were being airlifted home Sunday after Tunisia's initial refusal to let them in sparked clashes at the border.

Egypt has a chosen a consortium that includes the Egyptian army and global engineering firm Dar al-Handasah to develop an international industrial and logistics hub in the Suez Canal area, government and military sources said on Sunday.

According to a government official representing Egypt at the US-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington DC, Egypt intends to discuss with African and American leaders the plans of development companies aiming to revitalise the Egyptian economy over the coming years.

Egypt has filed a compliant to the United States on remarks made by its state department deputy spokeswoman, which accused Egypt of using American aid to suppress demonstrators.

The Muslim Brotherhood and the newly-declared Islamic State (Isis) “no doubt” share a number of similarities, said the Ministry of Religious Endowments.