Outgoing Israeli army chief of staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz was optimistic that Hizbullah would not launch an attack on the Jewish state soon but did not rule out a future war.

“We don’t expect war to be initiated against us in the coming year, but there could be a deterioration as a result of specific events” as occurred in the Gaza Strip, Gantz said in interviews published in eight newspapers in the past days and over the weekend.

An Egyptian court sentenced 68 people to up to 15 years in prison Tuesday over protest clashes, in the latest mass sentencing of supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohammed Morsi.

They were accused of taking part in street violence in October 2013 in which more than 50 demonstrators were shot dead in Cairo during clashes with police.

An Egyptian court on Saturday postponed its verdict in the murder retrial of former president Hosni Mubarak to November, in the latest twist in the legal battle surrounding the ousted autocrat.

Mubarak is accused alongside seven of his former police commanders of involvement in the killing of hundreds of demonstrators during the 2011 uprising that ended his three-decade rule.

An Egyptian man reportedly cured of Ebola has been quarantined in Cairo as a precaution after returning from Sierra Leone, state media reported Friday.

The 35-year-old had received treatment in Sierra Leone and tested negative for the virus before landing in Cairo on Thursday, the state-owned al-Ahram newspaper reported on its website.

Egyptian courts sentenced nearly 100 people to prison for up to 25 years Thursday after finding them guilty of violence during protests in support of ousted Islamist President Mohamed Morsi.

Hundreds of Morsi supporters have been handed lengthy jail terms and death sentences after speedy trials amid a brutal crackdown by the authorities since the Islamist's overthrow in July last year.

Police have arrested a Lebanese smuggler and scores of Syrians and Palestinians trying to flee to Italy, the state-run National News Agency reported on Wednesday.

Around 107 Syrians and Palestinians from the southern refugee camp of Ain el-Hilweh were arrested at the port of the northern city of Tripoli, NNA said.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has expressed readiness to train Lebanese troops to help them in the fight against terrorists, An Nahar daily reported on Wednesday.

The newspaper quoted ministerial sources as saying that al-Sisi told Prime Minister Tammam Salam during a meeting in New York that Cairo was “ready to help as much as it could.”

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators in Cairo on Tuesday agreed to schedule new talks on a durable Gaza ceasefire for the last week of October, a Hamas official said.

A delay in the talks after their first Egypt-mediated negotiations since the end last month of a devastating 50-day war in Gaza had been expected, because of upcoming Jewish and Muslim holidays.

Eight men arrested in Egypt for appearing in a "gay marriage" video that went viral on the Internet have been referred to trial for inciting debauchery, judicial sources said Monday.

Homosexuality is not included in a list of sexual offenses explicitly outlawed by Egyptian law, but it can be punished under several different statutes on morality.

An Egyptian court Sunday suspended the jail sentence of prominent activist Mahienour el-Massry convicted for taking part in an illegal protest, paving the way for her release, her lawyer said.

An appeals court in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria in July had already cut Massry's initial two-year term to six months and a fine of 50,000 Egyptian pounds (about $7,000).