Masked gunmen on a motorcycle shot dead four Egyptian policemen south of Cairo on Saturday, the interior ministry said.

The gunmen opened fire on a police vehicle, killing those inside, in an area between the famed Giza pyramids west of Cairo and the Saqarra pyramids to the south, the ministry said in a statement.

Egypt's Coptic Pope Tawadros II arrived in Jerusalem on Thursday for the funeral of a senior cleric, the first visit by the head of Coptic Christians in decades, the church said.

He will attend the funeral of Archbishop Anba Abraham, the head of the Coptic Church in the Holy Land, who died on Wednesday at the age of 72.

The death toll from a gun and bomb attack claimed by the Islamic State group in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula has risen to seven, the health ministry said on Wednesday.

Two of the dead in Tuesday's attack on the Swiss Inn hotel in the North Sinai provincial capital El-Arish were judges who had been overseeing voting in parliamentary elections earlier this week, ministry spokesman Khaled Megahed said.

Islamic State group suicide bombers killed four people, including a judge, in an assault Tuesday on a North Sinai hotel hosting judges overseeing Egypt's parliamentary polls, the government and jihadists said.

The interior ministry said a judge, two policemen and a civilian were killed in the blasts at the Swiss Inn hotel in the town of El-Arish, the provincial capital of North Sinai where Islamist militants are waging an insurgency.

Egypt border guards Monday shot dead five Sudanese and wounded six others in a gunfight near the Israeli border as the African migrants tried to cross into Israel, the army said.

The firefight broke out at dawn when a group of Sudanese migrants "helped by criminals" trying to cross were stopped by border guards, the army said in a statement.

Egyptians began voting Sunday across 13 of the country's 27 provinces in the second phase of parliamentary elections after a low turnout marred the first stage in the absence of any strong opposition.

The election is expected to elect lawmakers who firmly back President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who has crushed all forms of dissent since ousting his Islamist predecessor Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.

Russia signed two agreements Thursday to finance and build Egypt's first nuclear power plant, in a ceremony attended by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

Sergei Kirienko, director general of Russian atomic energy agency Rosatom, said the agreement is for the construction and operation of four 1,200 MW reactors, making the country "a regional leader in technology."

Russia on Tuesday pounded Islamic States targets in Syria after confirming that a bomb attack brought down its passenger jet over Egypt last month, killing all 224 people on board. 

President Vladimir Putin pledged to hunt down and "punish" those behind the attack but did not blame any specific group as he ordered an intensification of Moscow's campaign in Syria, vowing "vengeance."

A recording from Russian Airbus A321 which caught a sound before the plane disintegrated in midair will be sent abroad for analysis, Egypt's civil aviation minister was quoted as saying Friday.

It was not immediately clear which country would receive the copy of the black box recording to analyze one of the key clues of the investigation into the October 31 disaster, which killed all 224 on board.

Saudi King Salman has expressed "full confidence" in Egyptian security measures, ordering Riyadh's national airline to continue flights to Sharm el-Sheikh despite suspicions a bomb downed a Russian jet flying from the resort.

An ally of Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the king "directed Saudi Arabian Airlines to continue running flights to Sharm el-Sheikh from Riyadh and Jeddah in support of tourism in the Arab Republic of Egypt," the Saudi Press Agency reported Thursday.