"Every second we thought that we were going to die," Ortal Dadya said after emerging from the safe room of her home where she hid when Hamas fighters stormed Sderot.

The stunned 39-year-old Israeli mother described Saturday's violence in the town near the Gaza Strip as "something that I never, never saw" in the past.

Bloodstains and bullet casings still covered the streets on Sunday, a day after the surprise attack by the Islamist group that rules the Palestinian enclave.

Residents of Sderot were left reeling from the unprecedented assault by the militants.

The conflict between Israel and Hamas militants is making a global impact with Britain, Canada, France and Germany among nations stepping up security around potential Jewish targets and pro-Palestinian demonstrations erupting in cities across the world.

- Britain -

Police in London said Sunday they had boosted patrols following the Hamas attack.

"We are aware of a number of incidents... in relation to the ongoing conflict in Israel and the border with Gaza," the Metropolitan Police said on social media.

President Ebrahim Raisi said on Sunday that Iran supports the Palestinians' right to self-defence and warned Israel must be held accountable for endangering the region, a day after Hamas attacked Israel.

Palestinian militants from the Iran-backed Islamist group Hamas, which controls the Gaza strip, penetrated Israel at dawn on Saturday under the cover of a massive rocket barrage.

Almost 1,000 people have been killed in the conflict so far, with Israel reporting more than 600 lives lost and Gaza's health ministry putting its toll at 370 dead.

An Egyptian policeman shot dead two Israeli tourists and their Egyptian guide Sunday, local media and Israeli authorities said, as war raged for a second day between Israel and Palestinian militants.

Israel's National Security Council later said its citizens should consider not travelling abroad particularly in the Middle East "on the backdrop of the attack in Egypt."

It said visitors already in Egypt should leave "as soon as possible."

The president of the upcoming COP28 climate talks in Dubai called on Sunday for governments to abandon "fantasies" such as hastily ditching existing energy infrastructure in pursuit of climate goals.

"We cannot unplug the energy system of today before we build the new system of tomorrow. It is simply not practical or possible," Sultan Al Jaber said during the opening session of Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Climate Week, a UN-organised conference hosted in the Saudi capital Riyadh.

Israel relentlessly pounded the Gaza Strip early Monday as fighting raged with Hamas around the Gaza Strip and the death toll from the war against the Palestinian militants surged above 1,1000.

The Israeli army said it hit more than 500 targets in the blockaded and impoverished Gaza Strip in overnight clashes, while fighting persisted in seven to eight locations inside Israel around the enclave.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday inaugurated the first church built with government backing in overwhelmingly Muslim Turkey's 100-year history as a post-Ottoman state.

The Mor Ephrem Syriac Orthodox Church's opening marks an important cultural and political moment for both Turkey and its powerful leader.

Erdogan drew widespread condemnation during his two-decade rule for converting ancient churches into mosques and making Islamic conservatism into a leading social force.

Germany and France on Saturday moved to reinforce security around Jewish temples, schools and monuments after the surprise attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas against Israel.

Germany tightened police protection of Jewish and Israeli institutions, as some supporters of the Palestinians took to the streets of Berlin to celebrate the attack.

France focused on Jewish temples and schools in cities across the country, as one Jewish leader expressed concern at the possibility the conflict might be imported there.

With its surprise attack against Israel, Hamas has violently shifted the world's eyes back to the Palestinians and dealt a severe blow to momentum to secure a landmark US-brokered deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

The Iranian-backed Islamist militants who run the impoverished, blockaded Gaza Strip on Saturday fired thousands of rockets and infiltrated forces into Israel, 50 years after Arab states' assault on Israel during the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur.

Rights campaigner Narges Mohammadi "celebrated" her Nobel Peace Prize with fellow detainees in their Tehran prison cell, her family told AFP on Saturday.

"Narges learned that she had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize yesterday afternoon from messages sent from the men's unit, where they have easier access to telephones on Fridays," her family said.

That same evening, "state television broadcast the news at 10.30 pm with an insulting and defamatory portrait of Narges", the family's statement continued.