Israel

The crossing will be reopened for a few hours to transfer the humanitarian aid to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Gaza Strip, an Israeli government spokesperson told Xinhua news agency. The announcement came amid a deadly escalation between Israelis and Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

The fire on Monday night triggered sirens in the community of Kibbutz Misgav Am in northern Israel, reports Xinhua news agency. "Six failed launches were identified from Lebanon that did not cross into Israeli territory," a military spokesperson said in a statement. There were no immediate reports of casualties on both sides.

About 460 of the rockets never made it across the border and went down in Gaza territory, dpa news agency quoted the military as saying. The Iron Dome missile defence system had an interception rate of about 90 per cent, it said. There were initially no current figures on the number of attacks by Israel in the Gaza Strip this morning.

"I am appalled by the increasingly large numbers of Palestinian civilian casualties, including many women and children, from Israeli strikes in Gaza. I also deplore Israeli fatalities from rockets launched from Gaza," he said. The fighting risks dragging Palestinians and Israelis into a spiral of violence with devastating consequences for both communities and for the entire region, he said.

In the capital Washington, D.C., hundreds took part in pro-Palestinian protests on Saturday, marching from the Washington Monument to the US Capitol, reports Xinhua news agency. Also on Saturday, thousands of people rallied in Los Angeles in support of Palestinians.

Around 4,200 police officers were deployed in the French capital ahead of the protest on Saturday afternoon, dpa news agency quoted Franceinfo as saying in a report. By 7 p.m., 44 people had been arrested, and one policeman was injured, according to authorities. According to the Ministry of the Interior, between 2,500 and 3,500 people took to the streets in Paris, French media reported.

According to witnesses and local sources, among the targets on Saturday was the house of Yehya Sinwar, leader of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in the Gaza Strip, reports Xinhua news agency. There was no more information about the Hamas chief, while informed sources said he wasn't home when the building was bombed.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), citing its partners, reported on Friday that civilian infrastructure damage in the Gaza Strip includes more than 20 schools, reports Xinhua news agency. An estimated 2 million people live in Gaza and about 3 million more live in the West Bank.

Overnight and at predawn on Friday, the tit-for-tat violent military confrontations between the two sides were intensified, reports Xinhua news agency. Hamas militants fired more barrages of rockets into Israel, and Israeli fighter jets kept striking on the enclave. The Hamas-run Ministry of Health said that 122 Palestinians have been killed, including 31 children and 20 women, and 900 others injured since Monday in the Gaza Strip.

Asked what the Secretary-General expects from Sunday's emergency meeting of the Security Council on the violent escalation, Guterres' spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Friday: "What we would like to see is a strong, unified voice for de-escalation, for a cessation of hostilities and a push to get the parties back on track to find a political solution to this conflict that has been going on and on and on."