Egypt’s affiliate of the Islamic State group has confirmed the death of its chief, which comes two weeks after the military announced the killing during an operation in the North Sinai.

Egypt is scheduled to vote as early as next month on a law that would ease the country’s historic restrictions on church construction.

The Egyptian government has restored and rebuilt 70 percent of churches and Christian institutions damaged after the dispersal of the 2013 sit-ins at the Rabaa and Nahda squares, the state-owned newspaper Al-Ahram reported on Wednesday.

The world’s highest seat of Sunni Islam, Egypt’s Al-Azhar, strongly condemned on Wednesday the recurrent storming by Israeli settlers of Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem this week, state news agency MENA reported.

“A culture of religious discrimination is widespread as authorities keep turning their backs on the threats facing Copts in Egypt,” said a statement issued by the independent group Egyptians Against Religious Discrimination, which was read out by its founder Mounir Megahed in a Sunday press conference.

Al-Qaida’s terrorist-in-chief used his public video address to lambaste members of Egypt’s radical Muslim Brotherhood.

The German government has accused Turkey of being a hub for Islamist groups that allows them to further their aims across the Middle East, according to a leaked confidential document.

Ahmed al-Moghir, a fugitive member of the Muslim Brotherhood, has published a statement online claiming that Brotherhood members at the Rabaa al-Adaweya sit-in were heavily armed.

As the third anniversary of the violent dispersal of pro-Mohamed Morsi sit-ins passed quietly without protests or any commemoration events in the streets of Egypt, the currently outlawed Muslim Brotherhood maintained in several statements by its leaders that it will continue its “peaceful revolutionary mobalisation”.

Giza security services launched raids on Sunday targeting eight locations in the areas of Kerdasa, Nahya, al-Haram and 6th of October City, to arrest criminals involved in the attempted assassination of former grand Mufti Ali Gomaa earlier this month.

Egypt's Dar Al-Ifta – the state Islamic authority charged with issuing religious edicts – said recent remarks by the once-ruling Muslim Brotherhood make clear that the movement's "thirst for power" is behind its actions and statements.

Al-Azhar, the highest seat of Sunni Islam, condemned Sunday an attack on a New York City mosque in which an Imam was killed, calling on American authorities to "protect places of worship and respect [their] sanctity."

A group of activists and MPs staged a protest at Dar al-Qadaa al-Ali, a prominent judicial institution in downtown Cairo, Saturday, against sectarian violence in Minya governorate.

Churches building law is not only religious affair but also a national matter, said Egyptian counselor Tahani Al-Jebali on late Saturday.

Prosecutors in the town of Samallout, Minya governorate, have ordered the arrest of three people suspected of involvement in a fight that the authorities feared was in danger of sparking a sectarian incident.

The Endowments Ministry has backtracked on its recently announced policy of enforcing pre-written Friday sermons in mosques across Egypt.

Nageh Ibrahim, an expert on Islamist insurgent groups and a former jihadist, said in an interview with Ahram Online that the militant group Ansar Beit El-Maqdas is "having its last throes," as the group has become quite weak during the past year.

A long-awaited draft law on building churches will make the process of obtaining licences easier, the legislation text shows.

The legislative committee of Egypt’s House of Representatives gives the priority to the churches building law, said MP Suzy Nashed on late Thursday.

A draft law is currently prepared to control the religious fatwa during the coming period and to contain the current state of chaos resulted from the increasing irresponsible fatwas issued by non-professionals, said MP Amr Hamroush.

Egypt’s liberal Wafd Party was the first to submit a draft law to regulate the building and renovation of churches in the country, said MP Mohamed Fouad on Thursday.