Six international peacekeepers, including four Americans, were wounded Thursday in two roadside bombings in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula where Islamic State group militants are active, Egyptian and U.S. security officials said.

The peacekeepers, part of a force that monitors a 1979 peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, are based in the north of the peninsula, where IS militants have killed scores of soldiers in attacks.

An Egyptian court Thursday sentenced two female dancers to six months in jail each for "inciting debauchery," in the second verdict of its kind since June, a judicial source said.

Arrested in July, the dancers known as Bardis and Shakira, were also convicted of "broadcasting obscenities" for appearing in two video clips wearing flimsy clothes and making "suggestive" moves, the source said.

Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris has offered to buy an island off Greece or Italy and develop it to help hundreds of thousands of people fleeing from Syria and other conflicts.

The telecoms tycoon first announced the initiative on Twitter.

An Egyptian court sentenced dozens of people to life in prison or lesser jail terms on Thursday over pro-Islamist riots and church arsons following a bloody crackdown on protesters in 2013.

The court in the southern province of Sohag sentenced 22 people to life, 37 people to 15 years in prison and eight to 10 years in prison.

Egypt's legislative elections, the first since President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi took office, are to be contested in phases starting October 17, the electoral commission announced on Sunday.

Analysts say the polls, with Sisi loyalists heavily favored to emerge the big winners, will serve to appease Egypt's backers in the West who see the president as a rampart against jihadist violence despite concerns over repression that has eliminated any meaningful opposition.

Italian energy giant Eni on Sunday announced the discovery of the "largest ever" offshore natural gas field in the Mediterranean, in Egypt's territorial waters.

The discovery, confirmed by Egypt's oil ministry, could hold a potential 30 trillion cubic feet (850 billion cubic meters) of gas in an area of about 100 square kilometers (40 square miles), Eni said in a statement.

Egypt's foreign ministry on Sunday summoned the British ambassador over his criticism of prison sentences handed to three journalists from Qatari broadcaster Al-Jazeera.

"What counts is the Egyptian people's confidence in the transparency and independence of the Egyptian judiciary," the foreign ministry said, calling ambassador John Casson's comments "unacceptable interference."

Australian Al-Jazeera reporter Peter Greste called Sunday for Egypt's president to pardon him and two colleagues handed prison sentences in a shock ruling that sparked international condemnation and which he described as "politically motivated".

The Cairo court said Greste, along with Canadian Mohamed Fahmy and Egyptian producer Baher Mohamed, had broadcast "false" news that had harmed Egypt and sentenced them to three years in jail.

An Egyptian court sentenced three Al-Jazeera reporters to three years in prison on Saturday, in a shock ruling that sparked international condemnation.

Canadian Mohamed Fahmy and Egyptian producer Baher Mohamed were in court for the verdict, while Australian journalist Peter Greste was tried in absentia after his deportation early this year.

Egypt has referred 12 men to military trial for alleged involvement in a cell behind a narrowly averted attack on tourists at a pharaonic temple in June, prosecutors said Thursday.

The assailants had been recruited by the Islamic State group's Egyptian affiliate, along with two "foreigners" who were killed in the incident at the Karnak temple in Luxor, the prosecution said in a statement.