Egypt accused Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah of “walking in the footsteps of his mentor,” Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei.

“They all want to ignite the region,” Egyptian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Husam Zaki told the Saudi al-Watan daily about Nasrallah and Khamenei.

The members of the so-called Hizbullah cell that have escaped during a mass prison breakout are most probably still in Egypt, Hizbullah circles told pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat in remarks published Wednesday.

“All we can say is that the members of the cell and (its leader) Sami Shehab are doing well,” they said, adding they believed that the network’s members were still in Egyptian territories “or else the party would have made an official statement and welcomed them in a proper way.”

Russia on Tuesday called for the U.N. Security Council to carry out a mission to the Middle East, including Lebanon and Egypt.

The Security Council has not visited the troubled region for more than three decades. Russia's U.N. ambassador Vitaly Churkin said council envoys should go to Israel, the Palestinian territories, Syria, Egypt and Lebanon.

Al-Qaida-front group The Islamic State of Iraq has called on Egyptian protesters to wage jihad and push for the establishment of a government based on Islamic law, the U.S.-based SITE monitoring service said Tuesday.

The statement, which appears to be the first reaction of any group affiliated with al-Qaida to the ongoing protests in Egypt, was issued on jihadist forums on February 8, according to the U.S. group.

Israeli deputy Prime Minister Silvan Shalom warned on Tuesday that Hizbullah was consolidating its military capabilities in contravention with U.N. Security Council resolution 1701.

He told the Herzliya Conference on “The Balance of Israel’s National Strength and Security" that Lebanon is the only country where a party has representatives in parliament and at the same time military capabilities.

Embattled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Tuesday formed a panel to oversee constitutional amendments, Vice President Omar Suleiman said, as anti-government protests entered their third week.

"President Mubarak today signed a decree for the formation of the constitutional commission which will oversee constitutional amendments, and required legislative amendments," Suleiman said in a statement read out on television.

The Egyptian-born poet and novelist Andree Chedid, the grandmother of French rock singer Matthieu Chedid, died in Paris on Sunday aged 90, her publisher Flammarion said.

She was born into a Lebanese Christian family in Cairo in 1920 and was educated in Egypt and Paris before taking a degree in journalism at the American University in Cairo.

Electricite du Liban announced on Tuesday that most Lebanese regions were experiencing power shortages because Jordan’s electricity system was badly affected by a stop in Egyptian supply of gas through the “Arab line.”

EDL said that Jordan unexpectedly separated the Jordanian-Syrian line that provides Lebanon and Syria with electricity from Egypt, EDL said in a statement.

Hizbullah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah stressed on Monday that the party will not interfere in the protests in Egypt.

He said during a popular gathering in support of the Tunisian and Egyptian people: “We cannot stand idly by when the dispute is between the oppressed and the oppressor.”

Authorities at Cairo airport began screening incoming and outgoing diplomatic pouches on Monday, the MENA agency said, a day after the foreign ministry accused diplomats of trying to bring weapons into Egypt.

"The pouches will be screened by X-ray ... to stop any illegal items from entering" Egypt, which has been rocked by two weeks of deadly nationwide anti-government protests.