Cairo  -  A hostile campaign in the Egyptian media prompted a group of Egyptian-born Israeli Jews to cancel a trip to Egypt where anti-Israeli sentiment is on the rise, diplomats and academics said Tuesday.

The group of 45 elderly Jews of Egyptian descent were planning a four-day trip to Egypt that was to begin on May 25 after Egyptian media reported that the delegation would try to reclaim family properties seized by Egypt in the 1950s.

The Egyptian authorities told us not to make reservations for the delegation, staff at the Cairo Marriott hotel told Deutsche Presse- Agentur dpa.

The staff spoke on condition of anonymity.

The delegation failed to make reservations at several other hotels.

The Israel Egyptian Friendship Association in cooperation with the Israeli Academic Centre in Cairo was planning to hold a conference on Egyptian Jews in the Cairo Marriott.

The group was to take part in the conference and was planning to visit synagogues in Cairo and Alexandria.

"Cancellation of the trip two days before its planned date was a shock to everyone after efforts to obtain security permits and make reservations," Israeli press attache Shani Cooper Zubida told dpa.

Zubida attributed the sudden cancellation to a campaign in the Egyptian media that was not "objective."

The media frenzy over the trip heated up after a prominent television show host, Amr Adib, said the Jewish group was visiting Egypt to mark the 60th anniversary of the establishment of Israel in 1948.

Arabs mourn what they call the 1948 catastrophe, known as Nakba in Arabic, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians lost their homeland and the state of Israel was established.

"The trip was cancelled in commemoration of Nakba," Emad Gad, an expert on Israeli affairs at al-Ahram Centre for Strategic Studies, told dpa.

Speeches made by US President George Bush at the Knesset and the World Economic Forum in Sharm el-Sheikh were perceived here as extremely pro-Israeli, Gad said.

Those speeches stoked deep resentment against Israel in Egypt, Gad added.

There were also reports leaked to Israeli media that the group of Jews would raise the issue of properties once owned by their ancestors in Egypt, the analyst maintained.

Israel tends to use the issue of the return of Jewish properties in Egypt as a bargaining chip in negotiations with the Egyptians over other issues, such as their ties with the Palestinian group Hamas, Gad said.

Some 40 elderly Jews still live in Egypt, which was home to about 70,000 Jews until 1948. (dpa)