Egyptian police say they have foiled a plan by a terror cell to blow up Muslim and Christian holy sites and assassinate the Israeli envoy to Cairo, Press TV reported.
Three terror suspects from the al-Zeitoun cell -- which is allegedly linked to al-Qaeda -- admitted to having plotted to kill the Israeli ambassador Shalom Cohen and then bomb the Israeli embassy in Cairo, Egyptian newspaper al-Masry al-Youm reported on Saturday.
The report added that the plot, which was meant to be executed last year, failed due to the tight security around Cohen's home and the Israeli embassy.
The suspects also said they had conducted surveillance at potential tourist targets in the Sinai Peninsula and planned to bomb Muslim and Christian religious sites, as well as the gas pipeline between Egypt and Israel.
They also admitted to having contacts with members of the al-Qaeda organization and in particular with a man named Abu Hamdan al-Libi, who has since left Egypt for Iraq.
Al-Zeitoun is reportedly the same cell that carried out a deadly attack in a Cairo market last February.
Egypt is one of the only two Arab countries in the Middle East to hold diplomatic ties with Israel.
In line with its efforts in support of Israel, the Egyptian government has kept its Rafah crossing into the blockaded Gaza strip closed since June 2007 when Israel began its siege of the coastal enclave.
This has angered the Egyptian public and the Muslim nations, pressuring Cairo to open the crossing which was kept closed even during the Israeli deadly offensive into Gaza last December, in which nearly 14-hundred people lost their lives.