A satellite channel run and hosted by fully-veiled presenters aims to break down the barriers for women in niqab who until the revolution that brought Islamists to power were shunned by Egypt's lucrative television industry.

In the studios of Maria TV in Cairo, which were launched on the first day of Ramadan last week, two presenters dressed in stark black, their faces covered but for narrow eye slits and their hands gloved, discuss the editorial content for the day.

Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi named outgoing irrigation minister Hisham Qandil on Tuesday as the country's new prime minister and tasked him with forming a cabinet, state television announced.

The appointment comes 25 days after Morsi was sworn in as Egypt's first civilian and freely elected head of state to replace Hosni Mubarak, who was driven from office by a popular uprising early last year.

Cairo has eased the visa requirements for Gazans under 40 who want to travel to Egypt through the Rafah border crossing, Palestinian officials said on Monday.

"We were officially informed by the Egyptian side about a decision to allow any Palestinian under the age of 40 to travel through Rafah with his family without a visa, starting today," said Maher Abu Sabha, director of borders within Gaza's Hamas-run government.

Egypt on Monday began to release detainees held by the military following a decree last week by President Mohammed Morsi, security officials told Agence France Presse.

"Prison authorities have begun releasing the detainees," an official told AFP.

The uprising in the neighboring Syria, which kicked off in March 2011, began to significantly have an impact on the Lebanese agricultural sector.

Assailants on the Egyptian side of the border with Israel opened fire at a bus carrying Israeli soldiers on Sunday, causing no casualties but damaging the vehicle, an Israeli military spokeswoman said.

"Fire was opened at an Israeli army bus carrying soldiers," she told Agence France Presse. "Nobody was injured but damage was caused to the bus."

A top U.S. official said on Sunday that Washington has given $100 million in aid to Jordan to help host tens of thousands of Syrians who have fled the unrest back home and taken refuge in the kingdom.

U.S. ambassador to Jordan, E. Jones, said that the U.S. aid will also help Jordan meet its growing energy needs in light of the repeated cut-offs occurring from unstable gas supplies from Egypt.

Attackers on Sunday blew up a gas pipeline in Egypt's Sinai used to export fuel to Israel and Jordan, the 15th such attack since 2011, the official MENA news agency reported.

Witnesses told Agence France Presse they heard a loud explosion and saw flames from the site of the explosion near the northern Sinai town of El-Arish.

An Egyptian court on Saturday sentenced Ali Wanis, a Muslim cleric and ex-lawmaker, to 18 months in prison after he was found guilty of committing an "indecent act" in a car with a female university student.

Wanis, however, can avoid jail by paying 1,500 Egyptian pounds ($250) in bail as the case goes to an appeal court.

Egypt's former vice president Omar Suleiman, long-time spy chief to deposed president Hosni Mubarak, died on Thursday in the United States, the official MENA news agency reported.

"Former vice president General Omar Suleiman died in the early hours of Thursday in a hospital in the United States," the agency said.