Maj. Gen. Khaled Shalaby says masked gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire Saturday on a security checkpoint near Saqqara, home to the 4,600-year-old Step Pyramid.
Security forces cordoned off the area. No one immediately claimed the attack, according to the Associated Press.
Egypt has been confronting a growing insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula led by a local Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant affiliate, which has mainly targeted soldiers and police in Sinai, but has also claimed attacks elsewhere in Egypt. The ISIL affiliate claims to have brought down a Russian passenger plane last month, killing all 224 people on board.
Militant attacks in Egypt spiked after the 2013 military overthrow of Islamist President Mohammed Mursi.