Egypt

The five women and one man were taken off the presidential airplane and lowered to the tarmac on mobile platforms Friday.

Mexico's health secretary said the victims had suffered burns, respiratory problems or fractures in the attack Sunday.

The Foreign Relations Department updated its travel advisory on Egypt, advising Mexicans to "reconsider or postpone their plans to travel to Egypt."

The Rafah border crossing opened Monday for four days, allowing Palestinians to travel in both directions. Crossing director Khaled al-Shaer says some 20,000 people have applied to exit the coastal strip. Gazans seeking medical care and students are among those expected to cross.

Rafah is Gaza's only gateway to the outside world with no Israeli control. Egypt has kept it mostly closed since the militant Hamas group seized control of the area in 2007. 

The officials, who spoke under condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak to reporters, say investigations are underway Sunday and the wounded have been taken to a hospital.

Egypt has been battling an Islamic insurgency in northern Sinai for years, but attacks against the army and police increased after the July 2013 ouster of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.

The Islamic State affiliate based in Sinai has claimed a series of large-scale assaults there.

The state-run MENA news agency reported Morsi made the comments at a court hearing Saturday. He requested permission to receive outside food and described the prison food as "a crime committed against his rights."

MENA said the former president added that he was diabetic and that he was suffering from low-blood sugar. It said Morsi requested to meet with a medical team.

The judge said he would allow Morsi's defense team to meet with their client.

The group's Egyptian affiliate said two days ago it would kill 30-year-old Tomislav Salopek in 48 hours if the Egyptian government did not release jailed "Muslim women" — a reference to those detained in the government's crackdown on supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists.

Salopek, a surveyor in the oil and gas industry working with France's CGG Ardiseis, was abducted in Cairo last month. 

4:30 p.m.

An Associated Press reporter heard two explosions from the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing with Gaza and saw smoke rising, as a massive militant assault on Egyptian troops was underway some 40 kilometers (25 miles) away.

It was not immediately clear what caused the explosions or if the incident was linked to the coordinated assault on military targets in the northern Sinai Peninsula, which killed at least 50 Egyptian soldiers.

MENA says the 65-year-old Hisham Barakat died in a Cairo hospital on Monday after undergoing a critical surgery.

He is the top Egyptian official to be assassinated since the ouster of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi two years ago.

Hours earlier, a strong explosion had ripped through Barakat's convoy in the busy upscale eastern suburb of Heliopolis as he was driving to his office in the downtown.