Pope Francis said on Saturday that building walls, occupying territories and religious fanaticism would never bring peace to the Middle East. Speaking at the end of a summit of Christian religious leaders, Francis also repeated his view that the “status quo” of the contested city of Jerusalem should be respected, and backed a two-state solution to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The Syrian government and its Russian ally pounded rebel-held areas of the southern province of Daraa on Thursday with the heaviest air strikes of a two-week-old offensive, an AFP correspondent and a monitor reported. "Hundreds" of missiles and barrel bombs were unleashed before dawn by both Syrian and Russian aircraft, after talks on rebel surrenders broke down on Wednesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

A son of Islamic State (IS) militant group s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has been killed in the city of Homs in Syria, the group s news channel reported on Tuesday. "Hudayfah al-Badri ... the son of the Caliph ... was killed in an operation against the Nusayriyyah and the Russians at the thermal power station in Homs," the statement said. The word Nusayriyyah refers to Syria s Alawite community.

The General Command of the Egyptian Armed Forces on Tuesday issued communiqué no. 25 on recent developments in the military s Operation Sinai 2018. The armed forces launched Operation Sinai 2018 in February to target terrorist and criminal elements and organizations in north and central Sinai, parts of the Nile Delta and the Western Desert. Operation Sinai 2018 involves the army, navy, border patrol, air force and police.

Egypt condemned in the strongest terms a suicide bombing that targeted a Sikh minority in Afghanistan, killing at least 19 people and injuring others. In an official statement, Egypt s Foreign Ministry expressed its sincere condolences to the families of the victims and wished a speedy recovery for the injured, stressing the support of Egypt s government and people in facing terrorism to the government and people of Afghanistan.

Egypt will start implementing on Monday biometric fingerprinting for Egyptians looking to travel to Saudi Arabia for the Islamic hajj pilgrimage, Egypt s tourism ministry announced on Sunday. The ministry said in a statement that the fingerprinting will be take place from 2 to 8 July for those looking to perform the hajj in August.

Egypt s security forces killed four and arrested two members of the terrorist group Hasm, who authorities say were responsible for a failed assassination attempt on a security chief in the coastal city of Alexandria earlier this year. The suspects were killed in a shootout during a security raid on an apartment hideout in the Upper Egyptian governorate of Assiut, the interior ministry said in a statement on Thursday.

Deadly air strikes pounded rebel-held towns across southern Syria on Wednesday, as relief groups sounded the alarm over a Russian-backed push for the region and its main city Daraa. The violence has already ravaged civilian infrastructure in opposition towns, with three hospitals forced to shut down because of heavy raids.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday handed Donald Trump one of the biggest victories of his presidency, upholding his travel ban targeting several Muslim-majority countries and rejecting the argument that it represented unconstitutional religious discrimination. The 5-4 ruling, with the court s five conservatives in the majority, ended a fierce fight in the courts over whether the policy amounted to an unlawful Muslim ban. Trump quickly claimed "profound vindication" after lower courts had blocked his travel ban announced in September, as well as two prior versions, in legal challenges brought by the state of Hawaii and others.

The EU on Monday called for all sides in the Yemen conflict to stop the escalation of violence and ensure the port of Hodeida stays open for vital humanitarian supplies. Yemeni government forces have been waging an offensive to retake Hodeida -- the entry point of three quarters of the country s imports -- from the Shiite Huthi rebels, prompting thousands to flee amid fears of a bloody final showdown.

Egypt s armed forces has finished setting up a counter-terrorism centre in Cairo for the Community Sahel-Saharan States (CEN-SAD), it announced on Thursday. The centre is aimed at improving counter-terrorism cooperation and bolstering security, economic and political ties between member countries, the army said.

Official spokesperson for the Egyptian army, Tamer al-Refai, released a Facebook statement on Thursday confirming that the army has killed 32 militants and arrested 12 in Northern and Central Sinai, as part of the army’s ‘Comprehensive Sinai 2018’ operation. Through the statement, the 24th released regarding the operation, Refai said that the Air Forces has managed to destroy 21 stationing points for North Sinai militants over the past few days.

Incursions by jihadist insurgents into western Niger from neighbouring Mali have caused more than 16,000 people to flee their homes since the start of the year, the UN said Wednesday. "Growing insecurity since January has caused the number of displaced people to leap," the UN s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said.

The General Prosecution ordered the referral of 28 defendants to the State Security Criminal Court over charges of forming an illegal group with the aim of “endangering societal peace and national unity, as well as inciting people to protest.” The group in question is called the Egyptian Council for Change, a non-governmental pressure body established outside Egypt by a Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated politician, Hossam Moghazy, after the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.

Dozens of peace protesters arrived in Kabul on Monday after walking hundreds of kilometers across war-battered Afghanistan, as the Taliban ended an unprecedented ceasefire and resumed attacks in parts of the country. Exhausted after their 700-kilometre (430-mile) trek, most of it during the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, the marchers walked double file through the Afghan capital shouting “We want peace!” and “Stop fighting!”

An Italian delegation arrived in Cairo on Sunday, bringing together important church figures, pilgrims, journalists and TV hosts to visit the trail of the Holy Family, which was blessed by Pope Francis during his visit to Egypt last year. One of the organizers of the visit, Enjy Lahzy, said that the delegation will visit several stops from the Holy Family’s flight to Egypt, as well as the Faculty of Humanitarian and Theological Sciences in Maadi, which is affiliated to the Catholic Church. They will also visit some ecclesiastical (related to Church) and public figures, in cooperation with the Egyptian Tourism Ministry and Unitalsi, affiliated with the Italian church.

Ramadan is the holy month of prayer and religious obligations to Muslims. But in Egypt, it is also the month of family gatherings, shimmering lanterns, cheerful decorations and yummy oriented desserts. However, to Egyptians abroad, Ramadan tends to be different for each of them; while some find it lonesome, others enjoy the solitude. Egypt Independent spoke to several Egyptian expats around of the world on what Ramadan is like abroad, and whether they would rather spend it back home. “Ramadan simply means Egypt. Not having friends and family makes it tasteless, kind of like a restricted diet,” Mahmoud Gomaa, a 35-year-old living Singapore , tells Egypt Independent.

The Catholic Church announced that an Italian delegation of 50 tourists will visit Egypt on 17 June to follow in the footsteps of the Holy Family, after the country was recognized by Pope Francis as a pilgrimage site for Christians all over the world, similar to the Holy Land in Palestine. The delegation, headed by the Bishop of the Italian city of Viterbo will visit five blessed spots of the Holy Family journey program until 21 June 2018. The visit is considered the second of its kind as last February an Italian media group previously visited the path in Egypt.

The Syrian army has reinforced its anti-aircraft defences near the frontier with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, a commander in the regional alliance that backs President Bashar al-Assad said on Tuesday. Additional defences are set to be deployed in the coming days, the commander told Reuters. The stationing of the Russian-made Pantsir S1 weapon aims "to renew the air defence system against Israel in the first degree", added the commander, a non-Syrian who spoke on condition of anonymity.