VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis met on Monday the grand imam of Egypt's highest Islamic authority, Al-Azhar, looking to heal Vatican relations with the influential centre of Sunni Muslim learning after dialogue was frozen five years ago.

CAIRO: A total of 499 Palestinians crossed the Egypt-Gaza border crossing of Rafah over 14 hours Wednesday in both directions; the crossing will remain open for three more days, Youm7 reported an Egyptian official at the crossing as saying Thursday.

US-backed Syrian fighters advanced against Islamic State in the last tract of territory the group holds near the Turkish border on Wednesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said.

Islamic State on Tuesday urged Muslims to destroy their satellite TV sets to prevent hostile channels “destroying their beliefs and polluting their ethics”.

Iraqi forces struggled Wednesday to break into Fallujah city centre where hundreds of fighters from the Islamic State group and some 50,000 increasingly desperate civilians were holed up.

Iraq has delayed its assault on the city of Falluja because of fears for the safety of civilians, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Wednesday, as his forces halted at the city’s edge in the face of ferocious resistance from Islamic State fighters.

Six soldiers were killed and 6 others were injured when two improvised explosive devices (IEDs) targeted an army patrol in Egypt's restive Sinai Peninsula, Al-Ahram Arabic news website reported.

The United Nations special envoy to Libya said on Tuesday the country would not be able to defeat Islamic State militants unless the various military and militia strands joined forces against the group.

Libyan security forces captured a second town from in as many days from Islamic State, a spokesman said, pushing the militant group back towards its stronghold of Sirte and away from positions near to key oil terminals.

A force that controls oil terminals in eastern Libya said on Tuesday it had gained further ground against Islamic State, taking a second town in as many days east of the militant group’s stronghold o f Sirte.

The United Nations said on Tuesday it was worried about 8,000 Syrians trapped by fighting north of Aleppo where Islamic State has advanced against rebels, and that both Kurdish and rebel authorities had hindered people fleeing the area.

On Monday, Ismailia Criminal Court sentenced Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie and 35 others to life imprisonment, in a court case dubbed by Arabic news outlets as the 'Ismailia Violence'.

The Syrian opposition's chief negotiator in UN-brokered peace talks has announced his resignation, branding the stalled Geneva negotiations a failure on both the security and humanitarian fronts.

More than 50 Afghan police have been reported killed over the past two days in heavy fighting around the capital of the southern province of Helmand, officials said on Monday.

Iraqi forces started pushing into the city of Fallujah on Monday as a wave of bombings claimed by the Islamic State group in Baghdad and near the Iraqi capital killed at least 24 people.

Iran said on Sunday its pilgrims would not attend the annual Muslim hajj pilgrimage, blaming regional rival Saudi Arabia for "sabotage" and failing to guarantee the safety of pilgrims.

With Minya prosecutors releasing on Sunday five defendants on bail who were suspected to have been involved in sectarian attacks against Christians in the Upper Egyptian governorate last week, some fear that possible attempts to reach reconciliation may result in the assailants escaping justice.

A suicide bomber blew himself up on Sunday among young Iraqis assembled in a cafe in Moqdadiyah, northeast of Baghdad, killing at least seven people, police said.

Iraq's special forces completed a troop buildup around Fallujah on Sunday ahead of an operation to retake the Islamic State-held city west of Baghdad, a military officer said, as the militants attacked a newly-liberated town to the west.

Al-Azhar Grand Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb met with delegation from the Egyptian community in Paris on Sunday, the final official event in the Muslim cleric's visit to the French capital.