The Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip was reopened on Wednesday, ending a four-day closure amid disagreements between Egyptian and Hamas officials.

In a statement, the Hamas manager of the border crossing, Ayub Abu Shaar, said the terminal was reopened "after an agreement with the Egyptian side that all the parties agreed to."

The Muslim Brotherhood's political party, set up to run in polls, was declared legal in Egypt on Monday, state news agency MENA said, for the first time since the movement was founded eight decades ago.

"The commission on party affairs has given its approval for the formation of the Freedom and Justice Party," it said.

Former Egyptian finance minister Youssef Boutros Ghali was on Saturday sentenced to 30 years in prison in absentia on corruption charges, an Agence France Presse correspondent said.

Judge Magdi Ghoneim of the Cairo criminal court sentenced Ghali to 15 years for squandering public money by using cars held in customs and 15 years for abusing his position for personal gain from ministry funds.

Egyptian officials at the Rafah border with the Gaza Strip closed the crossing on Saturday, Palestinian police told Agence France Presse.

Ayub Abu Shaa, head of the Hamas police unit at Rafah, said phone calls to the Egyptian side went unanswered and a crowd of hundreds of Palestinians seeking to cross to Egypt were faced with a locked gate.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office on Thursday denied reports of a breakthrough in negotiations to free Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier captured by Palestinian militants in Gaza in 2006.

Netanyahu's office issued the statement after Egyptian newspaper El-Mesryoon reported that a deal to free Shalit in exchange for 1,000 Palestinian prisoners would be completed within hours.

Ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and his two sons, Alaa and Gamal, are to face trial on August 3 on charges of ordering the killing of protesters and fraud, a judicial source told Agence France Presse Wednesday.

The trio will be tried by the North Cairo criminal court and the hearing will be presided by Judge Ahmed Rifat, the source said.

Iran is "optimistic" about boosting ties with Egypt, Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi was reported as saying Tuesday after Cairo expelled an Iranian diplomat on suspicion of spying.

"We are optimistic about the future of ties between the two countries," Salehi was quoted as saying by state television's website

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat condemned Friday’s attack against the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, wondering whether the timing was connected to “very sensitive” political situation on the internal and regional scenes.

He asked in his weekly editorial in the PSP-affiliated al-Anbaa magazine: “Was the attack aimed at pressuring the participating countries in UNFIL to lower the number of troops who have played a major role in implementing U.N. Security Council resolution 1701?”

The Egyptian government is having difficulty exerting full control over the Sinai Peninsula, allowing terror groups to flourish there, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday.

Netanyahu, who was addressing the Israeli parliament's foreign affairs and defense committee, also said that changes in the region had seen the Hamas movement begin to shift its activities from its headquarters in Syria to Egypt.

Egypt will expel an Iranian diplomat who was briefly detained on suspicion of spying on the North African country for Tehran's intelligence services, security officials said on Sunday.

The officials said the diplomat, who had been released earlier in the day, would be "expelled within 48 hours."