UK armed forces "played their part in attempts to prevent further escalation" after Iran fired a barrage of missiles at Israel, the British government said Wednesday.

Data showed that there were about 80 flights, which were diverted from their original destinations due to the missile attack on Israel.

Turkey's Sunni President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been unsparing in denouncing Israel since the start of its devastating assault on Gaza last year following a deadly attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas.

Maintaining peace and international security is one of the UN's central missions, but its record has been badly tarnished as bloodshed intensifies in conflicts across the world, including in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan.

Israel has not commented on the unprecedented operation that saw Hezbollah operatives' walkie-talkies and pagers exploding in supermarkets, at funerals and on streets.

There was no immediate comment from Israel on the explosions that killed nine people, including the 10-year-old daughter of a Hezbollah member, and wounded around 2,800 others.

The strike on Wednesday flattened part of the UN-run facility where Gazans had sought shelter, leaving only a charred heap of rebar and concrete.

Gaza's civil defence agency said Tuesday that an Israeli strike on a humanitarian zone in the south of the Palestinian territory killed 40 people and wounded 60 others, with the Israeli army saying it had targeted a Hamas command centre in the area.

Israel's war against Palestinian militant group Hamas has come under increasing scrutiny as the civilian death toll rises, but international powers including the United States have failed so far to help negotiate a ceasefire.

The operation was launched as violence raged on in the other main Palestinian territory, the Gaza Strip, which has been devastated by war since Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attacks.

Violence has surged in the West Bank during the Gaza conflict sparked by Islamist group Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attacks on Israel.

The Gaza war, triggered by Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel, has drawn in Tehran-aligned armed groups across the Middle East, repeatedly heightening fears of a broader regional conflagration.

Egypt with fellow mediators Qatar and the United States are trying to reach a deal that would end more than 10 months of war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in Gaza.

Unrelenting air strikes by Israel more than 10 months into its war against Gaza rulers Hamas, restrictions of aid entering the besieged territory and hot summer temperatures all threaten the viability of a life-saving inoculation drive.

Top US diplomat Antony Blinken appealed Tuesday to Hamas urgently to accept a ceasefire plan to ease suffering in Gaza but also entered a public spat with Israel as he capped a new round of shuttle diplomacy.

Top US diplomat Antony Blinken was due to travel to Egypt on Tuesday for talks on a Gaza ceasefire after saying Israel had accepted a US "bridging proposal" for a deal and urging Hamas to do the same.

The on-and-off truce talks reconvened in Qatar's capital on Thursday without Hamas, which has accused Israel of obstructing a deal and insists on the implementation of previously agreed terms.

The fact that Haifa's industrial area sits next to one of the largest ports in the eastern Mediterranean also stokes fears of environmental disaster

In a veiled warning to Iran, Hamas and Israel, United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Qatar's Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani on Wednesday said "no party in the region should take actions that would undermine efforts to reach a deal," the US State Department said.

More than three years after imposing limits on human rights grounds over Saudi strikes in Yemen, the State Department said it would return to weapons sales "in regular order, with appropriate congressional notification and consultation."

After a week-long pause in November, US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators have endeavoured to secure a second truce in the 10-month-old war sparked by Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel.

These bring to at least 11 the number of schools in Gaza to be struck since July 6, killing around 150 people, based on a tally of tolls previously given by officials in the Hamas-run territory.

UNESCO said the site, which dates back to the fourth century, had been put on the endangered list at the demand of Palestinian authorities and cited the "imminent threats" it faced.

The agreement, signed by more than a dozen Palestinian factions on Tuesday, aims to find common ground for future Palestinian political institutions, which are currently divided between the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh accused Israel of deliberately undermining negotiations for a truce and hostage release deal because it did not want to end the war.

Hours earlier, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told two top Israeli officials that casualties among Palestinian civilians "still remain unacceptably high".

The strike on the UN-run Abu Araban site in central Gaza's Nuseirat camp was the fifth on a school-turned-shelter in eight days.

Israel maintains it lets in enough food to feed the entire Gazan population of 2.4 million. It accuses the United Nations of not effectively distributing aid stacked up on the other side of the checkpoint.

Troops, tanks and aircraft were fighting in Gaza's biggest urban area on the eve of new truce talks in Qatar that aim to free the hostages and halt the conflict raging into its 10th month.

As the war entered into its 10th month, the demonstrators called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to secure a truce and hostage-release deal or step down.