Egypt freed and deported Australian journalist Peter Greste Sunday after more than 400 days following a global outcry over his jailing on charges of backing the Muslim Brotherhood, but two colleagues remained in prison.

Greste, an award-winning correspondent for Al-Jazeera English television, flew to Larnaca in Cyprus with brother Michael after his release from Cairo's Tora prison, interior ministry and airport officials told Agence France Presse.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said Saturday the battle against jihadist insurgents in the Sinai Peninsula would be a long and hard one, as violence there continues unabated.

Sisi spoke following a meeting with his top brass two days after militants killed more than two dozen people, mostly soldiers, in the latest attacks in the largely lawless North Sinai.

An Egyptian court set May 16 for a verdict in the espionage trial of ousted president Mohamed Morsi, who could be sentenced to death if convicted, an official said Saturday.

Morsi, toppled by former army chief and now President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in 2013, faces several trials along with top leaders of his Muslim Brotherhood.

An Egyptian interior ministry employee was killed in North Sinai, security officials said Saturday, two days after jihadists aligned with the Islamic State group killed 30 people in the peninsula.

The 50-year-old, who worked for the road traffic department, was shot in the head in his home in the regional capital of El-Arish on Friday night, the officials said.

Egypt's army clashed with jihadists in Sinai Friday, leaving two children dead as President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi flew home to deal with a wave of militant attacks that killed at least 30 people.

Health officials said a six-month-old baby was hit in the head by a bullet during the clashes and a six-year-old was killed in a rocket blast in the peninsula.

At least 25 people were killed, most of them Egyptian soldiers, when militants fired rockets and set off a car bomb Thursday in the Sinai Peninsula, officials said.

The assault targeted a military base, a nearby police headquarters and a residential complex for army and police officers in El-Arish, the provincial capital, as well as a checkpoint in Rafah, on the border with Gaza, the security and health officials said.

Dozens of women protested Thursday against Egypt's police in the central Cairo square where a female demonstrator was shot dead on the eve of the anniversary of the 2011 uprising.

Shaima al-Sabbagh was killed during a leftist march Saturday in which participants were to place wreaths at a memorial in honor of protesters killed during the past four years.

Egypt's cassation court rejected Tuesday an appeal by three secular activists who had spearheaded 2011 protests against ex-strongman Hosni Mubarak, upholding a three-year prison sentence over an illegal protest.

April 6 youth movement founder Ahmed Maher, group spokesman Mohamed Adel and renowned blogger Ahmed Douma were arrested for a protest that ended in scuffles outside a Cairo court in November 2013.

The United Nations human rights chief said Tuesday he was "deeply disturbed" over the killing of 20 Egyptian protesters by security forces in clashes over the past few days.

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein also demanded in a statement that Cairo "take urgent measures to bring an end to the excessive use of force by security personnel." 

One person was killed and two wounded Tuesday when a bomb they were carrying in a car exploded in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, an official said, accusing the men of belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Egyptian authorities have regularly accused the blacklisted Muslim Brotherhood of launching deadly attacks since the army ousted president Mohamed Morsi in 2013, a charge denied by the Islamist movement.