Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya will begin a tour on Sunday, his office said, his first exit from Gaza since Israel and Egypt imposed a siege in 2007.

Sources in his office told AFP that Haniya would visit Egypt and Sudan, after which he plans to go to Qatar, Turkey, Tunisia, and Bahrain.

Egypt's judiciary decided on Sunday to free blogger and activist Alaa Abdul Fattah, who has spent the past two months in custody, his sister said.

Mona Abdul Fattah announced on Twitter that a court had decided to "free Alaa," who had been remanded in custody on October 30.

Egypt's main Islamist parties won 65 percent of votes for party lists in the second round of a historic election for a new parliament after Hosni Mubarak's ouster, the electoral committee said Saturday.

The Freedom and Justice Party won 36.5 percent of the vote for party lists, with 4,058,498 out of 11,173,818 votes, according to figures provided by the electoral committee for the second round which was held on December 14.

Thousands gathered peacefully in Cairo's Tahrir Square Friday to denounce the ruling military after soldiers were filmed beating female protesters during deadly clashes that sparked international outrage.

Supporters of the military, which took power after an uprising ousted veteran president Hosni Mubarak in February, held a counter-rally in the Abbasiya neighborhood, several kilometers away.

Five straight days of clashes in Cairo between protestors hostile to Egypt's military rulers and security forces have left 17 people dead, the health ministry said Thursday.

The toll rose Thursday after two people died from their injuries, health ministry official Hisham Shiha told state television.

Prime Minister Kamal al-Ganzouri called on Egyptians Thursday to set aside their political differences for the sake of the economy, warning that the country's finances were deteriorating alarmingly.

The military-appointed prime minister told a press conference that much of the aid promised by donor countries had yet to arrive, while the country suffered an outflow of $9 billion in the past few months.

Egypt's foreign minister on Wednesday slammed foreign "interference" following impassioned comments by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denouncing the stripping and beating of a female protester.

"Egypt will not accept any interference in its domestic affairs," Mohammed Amr told reporters.

Palestinian factions meeting in Cairo were mulling on Wednesday ways to reactivate their national parliament, which has been paralyzed since 2007 following the split between the West Bank and Gaza.

All the main factions, led by the former rivals Hamas and Fatah, are meeting in the Egyptian capital to thrash out ways of implementing a reconciliation deal that was signed in May but has never been implemented.

Egypt's military on Tuesday "strongly regretted" what it called "transgressions" against protesters, in a statement addressed to women after soldiers beat and stripped a female demonstrator.

The military would take legal action against those responsible for the abuse, said the statement, which came after a women's march in Cairo denouncing attacks on female protesters.

Clashes between Egyptian security forces and protesters demanding an end to military rule entered a fifth day on Tuesday, as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denounced the beating of women as a "disgrace."

Riot police used rocks, batons and live bullets to disperse protesters through the night and into the morning, witnesses said, in violence that has left 12 people dead since Friday.