Update: Curfew continues two more months

The state of emergency will extend for another two months, state TV reported on Thursday, as opposed to ending in mid-September.

Curfew will also continue to be in effect for the next two months, sources told the state-run Al-Ahram newspaper. However, curfew hours would be shortened, lasting from 12 am to 5 am, they claimed.

The decision comes after a deadly bombing of the military intelligence building in Rafah on Wednesday killed six and injured dozens of others. That attack came on the heels of last Thursday's bombing in Cairo's Nasr City neighborhood targeting Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim. Twenty-two were injured in the attempted assassination, including several civilians.

The state of emergency was declared on August 15 following the bloody dispersal of two pro-Brotherhood protest camps at Rabea al-Adaweya Mosque and Nahda Square, events that claimed the lives of over 1,000 people and injured thousands more. A wave of violent unrest that overtook the nation following the dispersal prompted the arrest of hundreds of Brotherhood members and people affiliated with other Islamist parties.

Prime Minister Hazem al-Beblawi condemned the Rafah attack on Thursday, vowing that the government, the people, the police and the Armed Forces would continue to fight terrorism, reported the state-owned Middle East News Agency (MENA).

The state will track down and stamp out these “terrorist cells” until the violence stops, Beblawi asserted in his statement.

But these attacks would not impact the interim government’s proposed roadmap to a full transition to democracy, he assured.

Beblawi's remarks came as the military began expanding its operations in the border areas around Rafah, according to the German news agency Deutsche Presse Agentur (DPA).

Eyewitnesses told the DPA that the Armed Forces have begun storming private homes in Rafah and Sheikh Zuwayed in search of militants, and also closed the Rafah border crossing with Gaza for the second day in a row.