Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said he would ask parliament to amend the law to toughen sanctions for police abuses, his office said Friday, a day after an officer shot dead a driver.

The statement from his office came as dozens of demonstrators gathered outside Cairo police headquarters chanting: "The interior ministry are thugs," after the officer killed the driver over a fare dispute.

The public prosecutor's office on Thursday ordered the release on bail of four leaders of the now banned April 6 youth movement that spearheaded Egypt's 2011 revolution.

Sherif al-Rubi, Mohamed Nabil, Ayman Abdel Megid and Mahmud Hesham were arrested on December 28.

Veteran Egyptian journalist Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, one of the Arab world's most prominent political commentators and a former adviser to president Gamal Abdel Nasser, died Wednesday aged 92, state media reported.

Heikal served as editor-in-chief of state-owned daily Al-Ahram from 1957 to 1974, and under his tenure it was considered the region's newspaper of record.

Nearly 2,500 people left Gaza during a three-day humanitarian opening of the border with Egypt, a rare opportunity for Gazans to leave the blockaded enclave, authorities in the Palestinian territory said Tuesday.

The Hamas-run interior ministry in Gaza said 2,439 people left the territory over the three days, while 1,122 entered and 334 were turned back by Egyptian authorities.

As Italy prepared to bury Giulio Regeni on Friday, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi warned Egypt its friendship was on the line over the probe into the student's unexplained death in Cairo.

Renzi said Egypt was cooperating with Rome's demand that Italian investigators be involved in the investigation into the death of the 28-year-old whose torture-scarred body was discovered dumped in a ditch on the outskirts of the Egyptian capital on February 3.

Italy on Monday warned Egypt it would not allow the fate of Giulio Regeni to be brushed under the carpet as anger mounted over the Cambridge University student's torture and killing in Cairo.

With the media publishing gruesome details of Regeni's treatment and pointing the finger at Egyptian security services, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi was under pressure to authorize a state funeral for the slain 28-year-old.

Human Rights Watch on Monday accused Egypt's justice minister of calling for the "mass killing" of members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood movement, which is already facing a brutal police crackdown.

Justice Minister Ahmed al-Zind said in a January 28 interview with satellite television channel Sada al-Balad that he "would not be satisfied until 10,000 Brotherhood members were killed for every martyr" from the armed forces and the police.

The body of an Italian student who disappeared in Cairo last week has been found showing signs of torture, prompting furious demands from Rome on Thursday for a joint investigation.

Italy summoned Cairo's envoy to express its "bewilderment over the tragic death" of Giulio Regeni, a 28-year-old Cambridge University PhD student.

An Egyptian appeals court overturned on Wednesday death sentences for 149 pro-Islamists accused of killing policemen in a mob attack on their station, a judicial source said.

The court ordered a retrial for the defendants over the attack, which killed 13 policemen near Cairo on August 14, 2013, the day police shot dead hundreds of Islamist demonstrators in the capital.

An Egyptian cartoonist known for mocking President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has been released after he was detained for running a website without permission, his lawyer and the prosecution service said Monday.

Islam Gawish, known on social media networks for his cartoons mocking Egyptian officials, was arrested on Sunday, in a move that raised fresh alarm over freedom of expression in Egypt.