The United Arab Emirates has recalled its ambassador from Tunisia to protest calls by the Tunisian president for the liberation of Egypt's deposed head of state, reports said Saturday.

Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki had called on the UAE-backed new rulers in Cairo to free Mohamed Morsi, the Islamist president deposed in a military-led coup on July 3, in a speech this week at the U.N. General Assembly.

Egypt reopened the Rafah crossing with the Gaza Strip on Saturday after a nine-day closure, an official of the enclave's Islamist Hamas government said.

Maher Abu Sabha, director general of Gaza's only land passage bypassing Israel, said he expected 300 Palestinians to cross from the territory into Egypt by the end of the day.

Gunmen killed an Egyptian policeman Friday in the lawless Sinai peninsula, where the military has been engaged in a campaign to root out militants.

The police officer was shot dead as he left a hotel in the North Sinai town of El-Arish, the official MENA news agency reported.

Several people were wounded in the Egyptian coastal city of Alexandria Friday when supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohammed Morsi clashed with his opponents, security officials told Agence France Presse.

Morsi loyalists had taken to the streets in several cities to protest against the military's overthrow of the Islamist leader in July.

Egyptian prosecutors have extended the detention of an Al-Jazeera journalist for another 45 days, his lawyer said Thursday, amid accusations of a crackdown on the channel for pro-Islamist reporting.

Abdallah Elshami, an Egyptian citizen, was arrested on August 14 along with about 700 protesters when police and soldiers dispersed two Islamist protest camps in Cairo, sparking clashes that killed hundreds of protesters.

Egyptian security forces have shut down the headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood newspaper in Cairo after raiding it and confiscating material, the Islamist movement's website reported on Wednesday.

Tuesday's raid on Al-Hurriya Wal Adala's offices came a day after a Cairo court banned the Brotherhood and ordered its assets seized, delivering a vital blow to the movement of deposed president Mohammed Morsi.

Gunmen killed an Egyptian policeman in an attack on his vehicle on Monday near the Suez Canal city of Ismailiya, security officials said.

Two officers were wounded in the attack on a police patrol, the officials said. The assailants fled the scene.

New moves by Egypt's army-installed authorities against the Muslim Brotherhood will not eradicate the movement, merely drive it underground, and run the risk of stoking militancy, analysts say.

An Egyptian court on Monday banned the Brotherhood from operating and ordered its assets seized, in the latest step in an intensifying crackdown since the army overthrew Islamist president Mohammed Morsi on July 3.

Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy has warned Hamas of a "harsh response" if the Palestinian Islamist movement that rules the neighboring Gaza Strip threatened Egypt's national security.

The response "will be harsh if we feel that elements within Hamas or other parties are trying to attack Egyptian national security," Fahmy said in an interview with pan-Arab daily Hayat published Tuesday.

The Hamas rulers of Gaza, where an Israeli blockade worsened after a friendly government in Cairo was overthrown, is doing all it can to avoid a confrontation with Egypt's army, experts say.

In July, an army coup ousted Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, a close Hamas ally.