An Egyptian police officer nicknamed the "eye sniper" was on Tuesday sentenced to three years in prison for his involvement in deadly clashes in Cairo in 2011.

Judge Makram Awad of the Cairo criminal court sentenced Mahmoud al-Shinnawi to three years for having targeted the eyes of demonstrators during protests on Mohammed Mahmoud street, near Cairo's Tahrir Square in November 2011.

Former presidential candidate Abdel Moneim Abul Fotouh said Tuesday his party will contest Egypt's next parliamentary elections, boycotted by the main opposition coalition.

The Strong Egypt Party is to field candidates in the staggered legislative polls which start on April 22.

Officials said Tuesday that the Egyptian president is considering whether to give the military full control of the restive city of Port Said after days of deadly street clashes stoked by excessive force used by riot police.

The officials said Mohammed Morsi met Tuesday with his security chief and top military officers to discuss pulling out the police and putting the military in charge of the Suez Canal city to defuse tensions.

The main security building in Egypt's Port Said was in flames on Monday, as fresh fighting erupted between police and protesters in the restive canal city, an Agence France Presse correspondent said.

The blaze, which started in the ground floor of the security headquarters, sent plumes of smoke into the air while clashes continued in the streets surrounding the building.

Israel is on a locust alert as swarms of the destructive bugs descend on neighboring Egypt ahead of the Passover holiday.

Israel's Agriculture Ministry set up an emergency hotline Monday and is asking Israelis to be vigilant in reporting locust sightings to prevent an outbreak.

Thousands took to the streets in the Egyptian canal city of Port Said on Monday for the funeral of three people killed in overnight clashes with police.

"The interior ministry (officials) are cowards!" the angry mourners chanted and called on Islamist President Mohammed Morsi to "leave".

A policeman was killed and an army officer was among dozens of people wounded on Sunday in the Egyptian city of Port Said as residents clashed with police, the military said.

The army said the policeman died and the military officer was hit in the leg when they were struck by gunshots fired by unknown assailants outside the headquarters of the Port Said governorate in northeast Egypt.

Hundreds of Egyptian football fans briefly blocked a main road to Cairo's international airport on Sunday, forcing a delay in visiting U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's departure, an airport official said.

The al-Ahly fans blocked the road in anticipation of a court ruling this weekend in which rival supporters in Port Said face sentencing over a deadly post-match riot. The al-Ahly fans want them convicted.

Egypt's constitutional court on Sunday threw out complaints against an Islamist-dominated assembly that drafted the country's divisive constitution, the official MENA news agency reported.

The complaints had challenged the method in which the members of the assembly had been chosen.

Protesters clashed with police Sunday in the Egyptian city of Port Said as the Interior Ministry decided to move 39 prisoners awaiting a verdict over alleged involvement in a deadly football riot, a security official said.

The verdict, expected next Saturday, is for the remaining defendants in a case which resulted in death sentences in January for 21 defendants, sparking clashes that killed at least 40 people.