A policeman died and another was injured in the early hours of Sunday during an armed attack on a police station in Al-Arish city in North Sinai, part of a wave of militant assaults in the peninsula since the 2013 ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.

Unknown assailants attacked the police station killing one conscript and injuring another, an unnamed security source told state-run news agency MENA.

Egypt's military has been combatting a decade-long jihadist insurgency in Sinai, with attacks increasing over the past year. Hundreds of soldiers and police have been killed, while the army says it has killed and arrested hundreds of jihadists. Civilians have also been caught in the violence.

In October, Egypt announced a three-month state of emergency in Sinai and a curfew from 5pm to 7am in parts of the governorate.

Earlier in November, Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis, Egypt's deadliest militant group operating in Sinai, swore allegiance to the jihadist Islamic State, which has seized large swathes of Syria and Iraq in recent months.

Authorities began demolishing houses and clearing residents along the Egyptian border with Gaza, to set a buffer zone in order to better fight the militant insurgency following a deadly attack by militants that killed 30 soldiers on 24 October.