Issa Ibrahim scrolls through photos on his phone showing off his infantry brigade fighting in Gaza.

"I'm the only Arab!" said the resident of Abu Gosh, a small Israeli Arab town holding on to its centuries-old tradition of Muslim-Jewish coexistence.

"My mother asked me: 'You're going to fight Palestinians?' But she understood my argument. I want to defend my country, Israel. We just want to live in peace," the young photographer and army reservist told AFP.

Medics are sounding the alarm at southern Gaza's Nasser hospital, where a nurse said snipers are killing people, sewage has flooded the emergency room and drinking water has run out.

"It was a black night, with strikes and explosions all night," Mohammed al-Astal, a nurse in the emergency department, told AFP on Wednesday.

Fighting between Israeli soldiers and Hamas militants has taken place all around Nasser hospital in the southern Gazan city of Khan Yunis.

Thousands of people gathered in the Lebanese capital Wednesday to commemorate the 2005 assassination of former prime minister Rafic Hariri and urge his son Saad to make a political comeback.

Waving the blue flags of Saad Hariri's political party the Future Movement, the crowd clapped and cheered as he paid his respects at his father's tomb in central Beirut.

"We want Saad Hariri to return to Lebanon, so that security and stability return," said Dina Hleihel, 55, a supporter who attended the rally.

The Israeli military said Wednesday a soldier was killed in rocket fire from Lebanon, while Lebanese official media said three civilians and a Hezbollah fighter were killed in a series of Israeli strikes.

While the rocket fire was not immediately claimed, the exchanges raised fears of a broader conflict between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, which have been trading near daily cross-border fire since the Israel-Hamas war began in October.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived in the Egyptian capital on Wednesday on his first visit since 2012, sealing a thaw in ties between the regional heavyweights.

Erdogan was welcomed at Cairo airport by his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and the two men exchanged a handshake on the tarmac, live footage of his arrival showed.

Erdogan, an outspoken critic of Israel's conduct of the Gaza war, said Monday that he would discuss with Sisi efforts to halt the bloodshed.

Spain and Ireland have asked the European Union to "urgently" examine whether Israel is complying with its human rights obligations in Gaza under an accord that links rights to trade ties.

The Spanish and Irish prime ministers Pedro Sanchez and Leo Varadkar sent a letter to the European Commission urging it to "act urgently on the Gaza crisis".

Israel vowed Wednesday to press on with a "powerful" operation in war-torn Gaza's Rafah, even as calls mounted for it to hold off sending troops into the territory's overcrowded far-southern city.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week ordered the Israeli army to prepare for an incursion into Rafah, where more than one million displaced Palestinians are trapped.

Netanyahu has come under growing pressure to refrain from launching a large-scale ground assault on Rafah, but has insisted Hamas's battalions must be eliminated in the city.

Israel's army Tuesday released a video it said was of Hamas's chief in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, filmed on October 10 with his family members in a tunnel in the Palestinian territory.

The black and white images showing a man said to be Sinwar being led through a tunnel together with a woman and three children are said to be the first of him since the Israel-Hamas war broke out.

Israel accuses Sinwar of masterminding the unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel that triggered the conflict, now in its fifth month.

Hezbollah's chief said on Tuesday foreign efforts to end the Lebanon-Israel cross-border violence served Israeli interests, and that ending the Gaza war was key to halting hostilities on the frontier.

Hassan Nasrallah spoke in a televised address a day after French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne said he had put forward "proposals" during a recent visit to Lebanon.

Recent weeks have seen a flurry of diplomatic activity in Beirut, with foreign ministers including from Germany, France and Britain visiting in efforts to dial down tensions.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said ties with the UAE had reached "unprecedented heights" as he started a visit to inaugurate the Middle East's largest Hindu temple in the Gulf state.

He spoke after the two governments signed deals, including a framework agreement on a major trade and transport route, at the start of his third trip to the United Arab Emirates in the past eight months.