An American was stabbed in the neck as he came out of the U.S. embassy in central Cairo on Thursday, a security official told Agence France Presse.

The American was rushed to hospital after the attack in Cairo's Garden City neighborhood near Tahrir Square, which houses several embassies and has seen a rise in crime and unrest in recent months.

Israel on Thursday formally apologized to Cairo after police violence against Egyptian diplomats during the Holy Fire ceremony at Jerusalem's Holy Sepulcher church on Orthodox Easter.

"I presented on our behalf a formal apology during a meeting with an Egyptian diplomat because in incidents like this it is good to lower the flames," Deputy Foreign Minister Zeev Elkin told public radio.

Coptic Orthodox leader Tawadros II arrives in Rome on Thursday for a historic four-day visit to meet Pope Francis -- a sign of growing rapprochement between the Vatican and the Orthodox world.

The meeting on Friday will be the first between an Egyptian patriarch of Alexandria and a head of the Roman Catholic Church since 1973 when pope Paul VI met with Tawadros' predecessor Shenouda III.

Influential Muslim cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi on Wednesday started his first visit to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, crossing into the Palestinian territory at Rafah, on the border with Egypt.

An Agence France Presse photographer said Egyptian-born Qaradawi, who is a citizen of Qatar and close to the Muslim Brotherhood, arrived in the territory shortly after 9:30 pm (1830 GMT).

President Mohamed Morsi pressed for closer bilateral trade and investment ties with Brazil here Wednesday on the first official visit by an Egyptian leader to Latin America's dominant economic power.

"We want more cooperation with Brazil," Morsi told a press conference after two hours of wide-ranging talks with his Brazilian counterpart Dilma Rousseff.

The editor of an Egyptian newspaper and a reporter will face trial for publishing a "false report that could disturb public peace," a judicial official said on Wednesday.

Magdy al-Gallad, editor of the daily Watan newspaper, and journalist Ahmed Khatib, were charged over a report that a militant cell arrested last year had a hit list comprising 100 Egyptian figures.

Armed tribesmen have kidnapped two Egyptian technicians working at a cement factory in southern Yemen, a local official said on Tuesday.

"The two men were intercepted as they left the cement plant in Abyan on Monday night and were taken off to a mountainous region," the official told Agence France Presse, asking not to be named.

Egypt's President Mohammed Morsi will appoint nine new ministers in a cabinet reshuffle on Tuesday, state media reported, in a shake-up that falls short of opposition demands.

At least two of the new ministers are affiliated with Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood movement, with the new appointments including the finance, oil and justice portfolios, the official MENA news agency reported.

A passerby who was wounded in a firefight between Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Qandil's bodyguards and a group of "thugs" died of his injuries on Monday, a security official said.

The man, a street vendor, was shot in the neck on Sunday night when a group of people driving a pick up traded fire with Qandil's bodyguards who were travelling in a convoy with him. Qandil was not hurt.

Egypt's Prime Minister Hisham Qandil said 11 new ministers will be announced by Tuesday morning in a cabinet reshuffle that falls short of opposition demands and bolsters the ruling Islamists.

The opposition had demanded a unity government and Qandil's sacking, but a partial list of new ministers published by the official MENA agency includes at least one affiliated with President Mohamed Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood.