Cairo- US special envoy George Mitchell is holding talks with Egyptian president Hosny Mubarak on Saturday in Cairo as part of his Middle East tour to promote peace in the region.

Mitchell arrived in Cairo on Friday night, coming from Israel and the Palestinian territories, and met with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit.

After the meeting Mitchell praised the Egyptian role in establishing peace in the Middle East and told reporters that the US was committed to "comprehensive peace" in the region.

Gaza City - Egypt opened its border with the Gaza Strip on Saturday for limited numbers of humanitarian cases, a Hamas spokesman said.

The spokesman, Adel Zourob, added that the Rafah crossing point will be open for two days for patients, students and Palestinians who are holders of residency permits in other countries.

The names of the individuals who would be allowed to leave Gaza appeared on the website of Hamas' interior ministry. The militant Islamist movement is in control of the Gaza Strip.

Cairo/Gaza  - Egypt is planning to open the Rafah border crossing into Gaza temporarily over the weekend, an Egyptian official said Thursday.

The crossing at the town of Rafah will be open only for those Palestinians who have permits to live or work in Egypt or other Arab countries. Students and medical patients will also be allowed to cross the border.

Cairo - Egyptian authorities on Thursday detained nine Bedouins in central Sinai accused of hiding members of the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah, a security source said.

Egyptian police also detained three Egyptians in Cairo accused of sending money to the Hamas movement in Gaza. The three were from the same family, a security source speaking on condition of anonymity told German press agency, dpa.

Security forces last week arrested a group of 25 people accused of spying for Hezbollah in Egypt.

Al-Arish, Egypt  - In two separate incidents, Egyptian security forces Wednesday found an estimated 900 kilograms of explosives in the Sinai peninsula and arrested three Palestinians for entering Egypt illegally, police said.

The explosives, which were discovered in the Jafjafa region of central Sinai, included 50 kilograms of TNT and 18 mobile phones that could have been used to detonate the explosives remotely, a source in Egypt's Interior Ministry told German Press Agency dpa, on condition of anonymity.

Cairo  - Archaeologists from Egypt and the Dominican Republic will excavate three sites next week in search of the tomb of Antony and Cleopatra, Egyptian officials announced Wednesday.

Archaeologists have been excavating the temple of Taposiris Magna, roughly 50 kilometres west of the Egyptian Mediterranean city of Alexandria, for three years, Egypt's Supreme Council for Antiquities said Wednesday.