Angry Muslims attacked a church and Christian homes outside Cairo on Wednesday, sparking clashes that wounded 16 people, a security official said, after a Muslim died of wounds from a fight with a Christian.

Police fired tear gas to prevent the mob setting fire to the church but the crowd returned and torched several homes in the village of Dahshur as well as three police cars, the official said.

Egypt's prosecutor general appealed on Wednesday against the outcome of the trial of Hosni Mubarak and several of his senior officials over deaths in the uprising that unseated the veteran strongman.

The prosecutor called for the June 2 verdicts to be annulled and for a new trial to be held.

Egypt's Prime Minister Hisham Qandil has selected a new government in which the finance and foreign ministers from the outgoing cabinet will retain their posts, state television reported on Wednesday.

Qandil was meeting with the ministers, including Foreign Minister Mohammed Kamel Amr and Finance Minister Mumtaz al-Said, a day before he was to formally unveil the cabinet on Thursday, the Nile News channel reported.

Egypt's President Mohammed Morsi has not sent a letter to his Israeli counterpart Shimon Peres, state media reported on Wednesday.

The Israeli president's office had said on Tuesday that the Islamist leader wrote to Peres pledging to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

Israeli troops engaged in a brief exchange of fire with unidentified gunmen across the southern border with the lawless Egyptian Sinai Peninsula on Wednesday, a military spokeswoman said.

No-one was wounded in the exchange which took place shortly after troops arrested three "suspected infiltrators" sneaking across the frontier, she said.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta arrived in Cairo on Tuesday for a lightning visit to the longtime Middle East ally to reaffirm U.S. support for Egypt's democratic transition, Agence France Presse reported.

The Pentagon chief is due to meet Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, the head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, or SCAF, and newly elected Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.

Egypt's new Prime Minister, Hisham Qandil, will announce a cabinet on Thursday, almost a month after President Mohammed Morsi took office amid a power struggle with the military, state media reported on Saturday.

Qandil, a former irrigation minister, has been in consultations with candidates since Morsi appointed him last week to head the new government, which must carry out the president's ambitious plans for the country.

A Saudi man who spent nearly seven years in an Israeli jail after he got lost in Egypt's Sinai desert has returned home, local daily al-Watan reported on Saturday.

Abdulrahman al-Atwi arrived in Riyadh on Thursday from the United States to where he was deported by Israel several months ago, the newspaper said, adding that it met him at his lawyer's residence in the Saudi capital.

Muslims on Friday set fire to Christian homes in a village near the Egyptian capital after a fight between a Muslim man and a Christian laundry worker who singed his shirt while ironing it, police said.

At least one person was wounded as Muslims and Coptic Christians also traded fire bombs, police officials said.

Hamas on Friday hailed the meeting between its leader in the Gaza Strip, Ismail Haniya, and Egypt's Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, saying it represented a "turning point" in bilateral relations.

"The meeting between (Prime Minister Ismail Haniya) and the Egyptian president (Mohammed Morsi) constitutes a real turning point in bilateral relations," Haniya's spokesman in Gaza, Taher al-Nunu, said in a statement.