Militants in Egypt's restive Sinai Peninsula shot dead two policemen and three soldiers after intercepting their vehicles on Thursday, security officials said.

Khaled el-Rashidi, a young man in his early twenties, was shot in the head and died on Wednesday night in clashes between security forces and residents of the Nahia neighborhood in Kerdasah near Cairo, April 6 Youth Movement member Sherif el-Roubi told The Cairo Post Thursday.

Egypt's Coptic Orthodox Church could finally change internal familial by-laws, which currently forbid Egyptian Coptic Christians from divorcing or remarrying, after increasing pressure from members within the community. Some members also adovate changing by-laws regulating papal elections, which were put in place in the 2012 election of incumbent Pope Tawadros II.

The Board of Directors of Orascom Construction Industries (OCI) approved Thursday donating LE2.5 billion ($360 million) in recouped tax payments to the Tahya Misr ("Long Live Egypt") social fund established by President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi.

Al-Azhar University expelled on Tuesday 23 students whom it accused of being involved in on-campus protests and riots.

Egypt's Salafist Nour Party said on Tuesday that it will take all necessary legal actions against "defamers" who claimed one of the group's members was at the centre of a scandal involving home sex tapes.

Egypt's plan to create a security buffer zone along its border with Gaza is not a solution to growing militancy in the Sinai region as it does not address the roots of the problem, the head of Amnesty International said on Wednesday.

Hundreds of residents in the Gaza city of Rafah, near the Palestinian-Egyptian border, have been complaining of the continuous sounds of penetrating explosions on the Egyptian side, Pls48.net news website reported on Tuesday.

The Egyptian militant group Ansar Beit al-Maqdis pledged allegiance to ISIS' leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi on Monday, joining a growing number of jihadist groups outside of Syria and Iraq who’ve offered their support to the self-declared caliphate.

They have slaughtered hundreds of Egyptian soldiers and police officers, recruited experienced fighters and staged increasingly sophisticated raids from the Western desert to the Sinai Peninsula. They have beheaded informants and killed an American in a carjacking, say Western officials familiar with intelligence reports.

The US has said it will "assess" the potential implications of an Egyptian jihadist group's pledge of allegiance to Islamic State (IS).

The interior ministry has vowed to block protests by a Salafist group calling for the implementation of Sharia law.

An audio recording published by Sinai-based jihadist group Ansar Bayt Al-Maqdis has said the group pledges allegiance to Islamic State (IS).

Egypt's ultra-conservative Islamist "Salafist Front" is calling on its allies to protest on 28 November to "impose the Islamic identity without disguise."

The Salafi Front has renewed threats of an “Islamic revolution” during Islamist protests planned for 28 November, stressing they are ready with a plan to take on security forces.

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed on Monday that one of its naval vessels fired on a boat returning from the Sinai Peninsula towards the Gaza Strip.

Operations carried out by the armed forces on Sunday have left one militant killed after an exchange of gunfire with security forces.

An audio recording published by Sinai-based jihadist group Ansar Bayt Al-Maqdis has said the group pledges allegiance to Islamic State (IS).

The East Cairo Prosecution referred on Monday three students at al-Azhar University to the criminal court for committing on-campus acts of violence.

The Cairo Criminal Court postponed on Sunday the trial of ousted Islamist President Mohamed Mursi over complicity in the killing of protesters until December 1.

A man was killed and two others injured on Sunday in Egypt's central Beni Suef governorate in clashes between citizens and the police in the village of El-Maymoun.