Egypt on Wednesday criticized a U.S. decision to reduce financial aid and withhold some military assistance as a "misjudgment" of strategic ties between the two allies.

Egypt will host the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain on Wednesday to discuss the crisis with Qatar, Cairo's foreign ministry said. 

Ramadan is a time for daytime fasting and lavish evening feasts, but Egyptians are scaling back preparations for the Muslim holy month this year after austerity measures fueled decades-high inflation.

An Egyptian court sentenced the Muslim Brotherhood's supreme guide Mohamed Badie to life in prison for "planning violent attacks" in a retrial on Monday, judicial officials and a lawyer said.

An Egyptian court on Sunday acquitted a U.S.-Egyptian charity worker accused of human trafficking and sexually abusing children, in a case that drew alarm from Washington and international rights groups.

Ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, toppled in a 2011 revolt then jailed, was freed on Friday in a country still coming to terms with the consequences of the uprising that ended his 30-year rule.

In six years, Egypt's Hosni Mubarak has gone from symbolizing the hubris of Middle East dictators swept away by the Arab Spring uprisings to an emblem of dashed hopes.

Hosni Mubarak, the former Egyptian autocrat toppled during the 2011 Arab Spring, left a military hospital on Friday where he spent much of the last six years in detention.

Ten Egyptian soldiers were killed in two roadside bombings as they clashed with Islamic State group jihadists in the Sinai Peninsula, the military said on Thursday.

The release of Egypt's ex-president Hosni Mubarak approved on Monday ends "talk of the Arab Spring" uprising that toppled him in 2011 after 30 years in power, an analyst said.