Usually, it is the United States that doles out rebukes over human rights abuses to the troublesome country of the day.

A Cairo court on Wednesday sentenced an Israeli tried in absentia to life imprisonment and a Jordanian telecoms engineer to 10 years in jail for espionage on behalf of Israel.

Bashar Ibrahim Abu Zeid from Jordan was arrested in April 2011 and accused of trying to recruit Egyptian engineers to help Israel intercept telephone calls in Egypt.

The decapitated bodies of four men were found in Egypt's restive Sinai Peninsula Wednesday, security officials said, adding that they suspected jihadists had killed the victims in the belief they were supporting the army.

Egypt's military has been carrying out a vast offensive against jihadist groups in the north of Sinai since militants stepped up attacks following the army's ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July last year.

An Egyptian court sentenced a policeman on Monday to 15 years in prison for shooting dead a man in detention, judicial sources said.

The low-ranking policeman shot dead the detainee in April inside a Cairo police station.

A policeman was killed and another seriously wounded in northern Egypt on Monday when gunmen in a parked car fired at patrolling officers, a security official said.

The two policemen were on patrol in the Nile Delta province of Gharbiya when they approached a car parked at the side of a road, the official said.

International donors will meet in Cairo to pledge funds for the reconstruction of Gaza as soon as a lasting ceasefire is reached between Israel and the Palestinians, Norway announced Monday.

The funds raised under the aegis of Egypt and Norway will be released to Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, said Norwegian Foreign Minister Boerge Brende, whose country heads the international coordination committee for aid to the Palestinians.

Israel warned Sunday it would not countenance any long-term truce deal that did not answer its security needs as Gaza ceasefire talks were set to resume in Cairo.

Egyptian-brokered indirect negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians are taking place during a five-day lull in the fighting which is due to expire at midnight (2100 GMT) on Monday.

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators are poised to resume indirect talks with Egyptian mediators on reaching a more permanent ceasefire before a current truce expires at midnight on Monday.

The Egyptian government persuaded both sides late Wednesday to adhere to a new five-day ceasefire, extending an earlier three-day agreement in order to allow more time to thrash out a longer-term truce.

Three people were killed as supporters and opponents of Egypt's ousted Islamist president Mohammed Morsi clashed after Friday prayers, security officials said, a day after five people died in sporadic violence.

Supporters of Morsi have attempted to stage rallies since Thursday, the first anniversary of a deadly police crackdown in Cairo that left hundreds dead, but security forces have swiftly quashed them.

At least five people were killed in sporadic violence in Egypt on Thursday after Islamists called protests to mark the first anniversary of a police crackdown that cost the lives of hundreds of demonstrators.

On August 14, 2013, after then army chief and now President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi had removed Egypt's first freely elected Islamist president Mohammed Morsi, police set upon thousands of Morsi supporters at protest camps in Cairo's Rabaa al-Adawiya and Nahda squares, leaving hundreds of people dead.