Egypt's prime minister said Thursday the spirit of the Arab Spring was still alive in his country and that the army chief likely to run for the presidency was no dictator, but more a De Gaulle figure.

"This was a great revolution," Hazem al-Beblawi said at a Davos World Economic Forum seminar.

Clashes between rival Egyptian students at a university in Alexandria killed at least one student on Thursday, a supporter of ousted Islamist president Mohammed Morsi, police said.

The student was killed when pro-Morsi protesters clashed with their opponents at Alexandria University, the police in the Mediterranean city said in a statement.

Egypt's military-installed authorities are quashing dissent and trampling on human rights, three years after the revolt which toppled Hosni Mubarak, Amnesty International charged Thursday.

"Egypt has witnessed a series of damaging blows to human rights and state violence on an unprecedented scale over the last seven months," Amnesty's Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui said in a report, as Egypt prepares to mark on Saturday the anniversary of Mubarak's overthrow.

Egypt said on Wednesday it was "very surprised" by a decision by its longtime U.S. ally to exclude it from a high-profile African summit being convened by President Barack Obama.

Egypt joins international pariahs Sudan and Zimbabwe in the short list of African countries not among the 47 invited to the August get-together.

An Islamist alliance backing deposed president Mohamed Morsi called for 18 days of protests from Friday, as Egypt on January 25 marks three years since the revolt that ousted his predecessor.

The Anti-Coup Alliance said in a statement on Wednesday that protests will last until February 11 -- the day when Morsi's predecessor, long-time ruler Hosni Mubarak, stepped down in early 2011 after an 18-day uprising against his decades-old regime.

A Cairo court jailed three people for two years Wednesday for destroying a monument to those killed in mass protests that unseated two Egyptian presidents since 2011, judicial sources said.

The monument was built by the military-installed authorities in Cairo's Tahrir Square -- epicenter of the revolt that ousted long-time ruler Hosni Mubarak in early 2011.

An aide to Egypt's interim president said Tuesday the country will never return to the corruption and authoritarianism of dictator Hosni Mubarak, deposed in a popular uprising in 2011.

Mustaf Hegazy, speaking to foreign journalists in Cairo, said: "There is no room for extremism, fascism, corruption and autocracy to return.

A jihadist group based in Egypt's Sinai claimed responsibility Tuesday for firing rockets a day earlier at Israel's Red Sea resort of Eilat, calling the Jewish state the Muslim world's top enemy.

Al-Qaeda-inspired Ansar Beit al-Maqdis accused Israel of pressuring Cairo to wage a "war on Islam and Muslims in Egypt, particularly in the Sinai... to protect (Israeli) security."

A court on Tuesday jailed a group of 30 Emiratis and Egyptians to terms ranging from three months to five years for forming a Muslim Brotherhood cell, a judicial source said.

The cell comprised 10 Emiratis and 20 Egyptians, including six who remain at large and were sentenced in absentia. The Egyptians will be deported after serving their sentences, the source told Agence France Presse.

Ousted Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi and 24 others, including top activists who opposed him and his predecessor, will stand trial for insulting the judiciary, state media and judicial sources said Sunday.

The defendants have been charged for allegedly making comments in the media and online that showed "disrespect and hatred for the courts and the judiciary," state news agency MENA said.