Jordan's Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi held talks Sunday during a rare visit to Iran, as fears of an escalation between Tehran and Israel grew following the killing of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh.

The political head of Palestinian militant group Hamas was killed early on Wednesday in Tehran, where he had attended the inauguration of Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian.

Iran and the Hamas militants, which Tehran supports, vowed to retaliate and blamed the strike on Israel, which has declined to comment.

Urgent calls grew for foreign nationals to leave Lebanon, which would be on the front line of a regional war, as Iran and its allies readied their response to high-profile killings blamed on Israel.

While diplomats worked to avert a feared conflagration, France's Emmanuel Macron and Jordan's King Abdullah II said Sunday a regional military escalation must be avoided "at all costs", the French presidency said after they held a telephone call.

Urgent calls for foreign nationals to leave Lebanon grew on Sunday with France warning of "a highly volatile" situation as Iran and its allies ready their response to high-profile killings blamed on Israel.

Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, which has traded near-daily fire with Israeli forces since the Gaza war broke out in October, announced its fighters had fired a barrage of rockets at Israel's north overnight.

The Israeli military said 30 projectiles were launched from Lebanon, with most of them intercepted.

Hundreds gathered near Beirut's port on Sunday to mark four years since a catastrophic explosion devastated the capital and to demand accountability, with the spectre of war weighing over commemorations.

Nobody has been held responsible for the August 4, 2020 blast -- one of history's biggest non-nuclear explosions -- which killed more than 220 people, injured at least 6,500 and devastated swathes of the capital.

Hundreds of Palestinians marched to protest the treatment of prisoners held in Israeli jails on Saturday, following reports of abuse and even torture.

Relatives held up pictures of prisoners and waved Palestinian flags during separate demonstrations in Ramallah and Nablus in the occupied West Bank.

"Even if the whole world submits, we will not recognise Israel," chanted the protesters in Ramallah.

In Gaza City's Al-Ahli Hospital, five-year-old Amir Habib al-Habeel screams out in pain from the burns he suffered from an Israeli air strike on his home in Shujaiya a fortnight earlier.

He occupies a bed far from his mother, who also suffered burns, and who cannot move to be by her son's side.

Instead, her brother cares for him, the only available guardian after his "father was martyred", as the tearful child says, struggling to remove one of many IV tubes.

Born in a poor village some 300 kilometres from Algiers, boxer Imane Khelif had to overcome obstacles in a conservative country where women are considered unfit for the sport.

With braided hair and a powerful 1.79 metre (5 foot 9 inch) physique, the 25-year-old is the object of a Paris Olympic Games gender controversy.

With smiles and a soft voice, Imane told her story on television channel Canal Algerie one month before the start of the games.

Middle East tensions soared as Iran and its allies readied their response to the assassination of Hamas's political leader, blamed on Israel, spurring fears of a regional war.

Israel ally the United States said it would move warships and fighter jets to the region, while Western governments called on their citizens to leave Lebanon -- where the powerful Iran-backed Hezbollah movement is based -- and airlines cancelled flights.

Thousands of Moroccans protested in Rabat on Saturday in support of Palestinians and to condemn normalisation with Israel, holding portraits of killed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, AFP journalists reported.

Hamas called for a "day of rage" on Friday for the burial of its chief Ismail Haniyeh, killed two days earlier in a strike in Iran which the Islamist movement and Tehran have blamed on Israel.

Israeli forces killed nine Palestinians in separate air strikes in the occupied West Bank on Saturday, the Palestinian press agency Wafa reported, while the Israeli military said it had "eliminated terrorist cells".

Five people were killed in an Israeli drone strike in the Tulkarem area, Wafa reported, while the Israeli military said it struck "five terrorists" on their way to carry out an attack.

According to Wafa, the drone fired two missiles at a vehicle which caught fire, killing five men.