Egypt's Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros II attempted on Monday to reassure Egyptians after the recent attacks on Copts in North Sinai, stressing that the Coptic families that have fled the governorate out of fear of terrorist violence will return to the city "when the time is right." At the start of this month, the Coptic Orthodox Church announced that 143 Christian families had fled North Sinai to Ismailiya after a spate of killings of Christians by Islamist militants in the governorate.

Islamic State's branch in the Sinai Peninsula posted a video on Tuesday depicting the beheading of two men the militant Islamist group said it had found guilty of practicing witchcraft and sorcery. The video, posted on a Telegram channel often used by IS, showed the group forming a religious police unit known as the Hasbah in northern Sinai, where it has waged an insurgency for years. The rugged, thinly populated peninsula borders Israel, Gaza and the Suez Canal.

Islamic State-affiliate Province of Sinai released a promotional video on Tuesday showing members of the organization carrying out what it alleges to be Hisba, or religious policing. The group claimed the footage is from locations in North Sinai, which it did not identify. Hisba is defined by religious scholars as the practice of commanding virtue and forbidding vice, professor of Islamic law professor at Al-Azhar University Ahmed Kareema told the state-owned Al-Ahram newspaper. He added that Hisba should be conducted by a select few who must be efficient, fair, knowledgeable and capable, describing it as a type of guardianship falling to those who have been entrusted with religious matters.

Hezbollah and the Nusra Front will exchange the corpses of fighters on Sunday in the first stage of a ceasefire agreement in the Lebanon-Syria border area, the Hezbollah-affiliated al-Manar television station reported. The ceasefire took effect on Thursday and will also involve the release of five Hezbollah prisoners and the departure of Nusra fighters to northern Syria along with any civilians who wish to go with them.

Pope Francis is urging the world to show a greater commitment to fighting human trafficking, which he called "a form of modern slavery."

Restorers working at the Monastery of St. Bishoy in the Wadi El-Natroun area have uncovered a number of medieval-era wall-paintings and architectural elements in the monastery s old church. “While removing the modern layer of mortar from the walls of the monastery s old church, several coloured wall-paintings were uncovered,” Mohamed Abdellatif, deputy antiquities minister for archaeological sites, told Ahram Online. He explained that the paintings date from between the 9th and 13th centuries AD, which will help archaeologists to determine the original architectural style of the church and the dates of its construction. According to historical books and religious documents, he said, the church was subjected to changes and modifications in its architecture in 840 AD, during the Abbasid era, and in 1069 AD, during the Fatimid caliphate.

Second Field Army forces destroyed on Wednesday three armed vehicles and three improvised explosive device (IED) workshops, in the fourth stage of the “Haq el-Shaheed” (translation: Martyr’s Right) operation, official spokesperson of the Armed Forces Colonel Tamer el-Refai announced.

Egypt s Al-Azhar – considered the world s highest seat of Sunni Islamic learning – announced that it would hold an international conference on Jerusalem in late September to discuss the Palestinian-Israeli issue "with relevant institutions and bodies," according to a statement reported by state news agency MENA. Senior Al-Azhar scholars said on Tuesday that the recent actions of Israeli occupation authorities in Jerusalem are "are not based on any humanitarian or civilised principles." Al-Azhar issued the statement after holding a meeting headed by the institution s Grand Imam Ahmed El-Tayyeb.

Egypt s interior ministry said on Wednesday that security forces have killed four terrorists and arrested two in two separate raids in Giza targeting those behind an attack on a checkpoint in mid-July that killed five security personnel. The interior ministry s statement said that security officials identified two hideouts for members of the group behind the 14 July attack on a checkpoint in the Giza town of El-Badrashin, one in the satellite city of 6 October and another in Giza s Haram district.

The Egyptian Armed Forces killed 40 militants and arrested another five in North Sinai during ‘Martyr Right’ army operations, an armed forces official spokesperson said in a statement on Tuesday. According to the statement, the Second Field Army engaged in military a week-long sweep, as part of the fourth stage of the ‘Martyr Right’ operation.

Cairo Criminal Court convicted 53 defendants Tuesday and cleared 92 others over various charges of violence and damages to public and private properties in the case now popularly known as the ‘Cabinet Incidents.’ The court sentenced 43 defendants to lifetime imprisonment, nine others to 10 years each, and one to 5 years.

Hezbollah said on Monday its battle with Nusra Front jihadists at the Syria-Lebanon border was almost over and urged remaining insurgents in the area to give up, pressing its campaign to take their last foothold at the frontier. With the Nusra Front almost beaten in the mountainous area on the outskirts of the Lebanese town of Arsal, the next phase is expected to focus on adjacent territory held by Islamic State militants. "We call on all militants ... to spare their blood and throw down their weapons," declared a statement from "resistance operations command" published by Hezbollah-run media.

Police and employees of the Nubia Museum in Aswan on Sunday foiled an attempt to steal a statue depicting goddess Isis breastfeeding her son Horus. A statement from the Antiquities Ministry indicated that the attempt occurred some time between 1:00pm and 4:00pm, when the museum was closed for lunch.

The Interior Ministry announced Sunday the assassination of eight Hassm terrorist group members in a shoot-out at a desert camp in Fayoum. Five other members were arrested in the Giza and Ismailia governorates.

Seven months after Libyan forces defeated Islamic State (IS) militants in the coastal city of Sirte, hundreds of bodies of foreign militants still lie stored in freezers as authorities negotiate with other governments to decide what to do with them, local officials say.

The Fatwa Committee of Al-Azhar’s Islamic Research Academy has opened a number of kiosks in one of Cairo’s main underground metro stations to allow commuters to seek guidance on Islamic issues. The kiosks, which opened on Wednesday on a trial basis, are located within Shohada metro station and are open from 9am to 8pm daily.

Cairo Criminal Court found four Muslim Brotherhood members guilty of attempting to assassinate the head of Giza Criminal Court’s Chamber 14, Counselor Moataz Khafaji, and sentenced them to life imprisonment. Another six MB members convicted in the case received a 15-year sentence.

At least 30 civilians were killed Wednesday in separate bombing raids by the US-led coalition and pro-regime warplanes on jihadist-held territory in Syria, a monitor said. Fifteen of the victims died in coalition air strikes on a village near the Islamic State (IS) militant group s stronghold of Raqa, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Wednesday that army forces affiliated with the Second Filed Army launched an intensive sweeping operation to arrest militants based in North Sinai. The operation led to the destruction of five 4-wheel vehicles and two stationing points for militants in North Sinai, in addition to targeting two stores of explosives.

Egyptian police have killed two members of the Hasm militant group in a shootout near New Cairo, a statement by the interior ministry said on Tuesday. The ministry says the two suspects, identified as Ahmed El-Bahnasawy and Emad El-Far, shot at police as they attempted to apprehend them. The ministry says the men were suspected of involvement in two deadly attacks in May against security forces, including a drive-by shooting in Cairo s Nasr City that killed three policemen and injured five others.

At least 547 boys at a German Catholic choir school suffered sexual or physical abuse in what victims have likened to "prison, hell or a concentration camp", said an investigator releasing a final report Tuesday on one of the country s worst such scandals. The Regensburger Domspatzen ("Cathedral Sparrows"), a 1,000-year-old cathedral choir in the southern state of Bavaria, was in 2010 dragged into the massive sexual abuse and paedophilia scandal plaguing the Catholic Church around the world.