As the sun sets on the hills of northern Israel, four rockets fired from Lebanon trace arcs through the sky before being intercepted with a bang by air defences.

"Hezbollah is harassing us," said Yoav Hermoni, the spokesman for Dan, a kibbutz where such exchanges of fire have become common while Israel has been at war in the Gaza Strip for the past month.

The Iran-backed movement in Lebanon has exchanged fire with Israel's army repeatedly in the weeks since the October 7 attack by Palestinian group Hamas plunged Israel into a war in Gaza to the south.

An Iranian court has ordered a five-year jail sentence against a French national tried on national security charges, his family announced on Wednesday.

Louis Arnaud, a banking consultant, was detained in Iran in September last year and has been held in Tehran's Evin prison.

Arnaud was handed the sentence by a Revolutionary Court on charges of making propaganda against and seeking to harm the security of the Islamic republic, the family said in a statement.

The "extreme" drought gripping Iraq, Syria and Iran would not have occurred without climate change caused primarily by burning fossil fuels, scientists said Wednesday, warning that punishing dry spells will become more intense as the world warms.

High temperatures due to human-caused climate change made the drought "much more likely to happen" -- about 25 times more likely in Syria and Iraq and 16 times more likely in Iran, according to the World Weather Attribution (WWA) group.

British police came under mounting government pressure on Wednesday to ban a pro-Palestinian rally scheduled to take place in London on the day the country commemorates its war dead.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has called the protest against the Israel-Hamas war scheduled for Saturday "provocative and disrespectful".

Organisers have resisted pleas from Sunak and London's Metropolitan Police to postpone the demonstration, when tens of thousands of people are expected to demand a ceasefire in the month-old conflict.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians fled the fighting and bombardment in Gaza on Wednesday, as Israel said it was tightening the "stranglehold" around Hamas and again rejected a ceasefire without the release of hostages.

Calls for a ceasefire to protect civilians have built over a month into the war sparked when Hamas attacked Israel and, according to Israeli officials, killed about 1,400 people, mainly civilians, and seized 239 hostages.

Plans to expand oil, gas and coal production by major fossil fuel countries would push the world far beyond the Paris deal's 1.5C global warming limit, the UN warned Wednesday.

The future of fossil fuels will be a key flashpoint when world leaders meet at the COP28 climate conference later this month, tasked with salvaging the world's agreed temperature thresholds.

G7 foreign ministers said Wednesday that they supported "humanitarian pauses and corridors" in the Hamas-Israel war but refrained from calling for a ceasefire.

The group also said after talks in Japan that their support for Ukraine in its war with Russia "will never waver" while calling on China not to support Moscow in the conflict.

Israel's campaign to destroy Hamas pushed into its second month Wednesday as its forces battled the Palestinian militants in Gaza City, despite mounting calls for a ceasefire.

Underlining Israel's plan to crush Hamas, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant described Gaza as "the largest terrorist base ever built."

"We are in the heart of Gaza City," he said.

Israel launched a massive campaign in the Gaza Strip after Hamas militants staged an unprecedented attack on October 7 that killed more than 1,400 people, most of them civilians.

G7 foreign ministers sought Wednesday to hammer out a common line on the Israel-Hamas war and signal to Russia that there would be no let-up in their support for Ukraine.

The ministers were expected to call in a joint statement for "humanitarian pauses" in Gaza, while stopping short of urging a ceasefire.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, arriving in Japan for the talks from his latest whirlwind Middle East tour, called Tuesday for the G7 to speak "in one clear voice" on the conflict.

Last month was the hottest October on record globally, Europe's climate monitor said Wednesday, as months of exceptional heat are likely to make 2023 the warmest year in history.

With temperatures soaring beyond previous averages by exceptional margins, scientists say the pressure on world leaders to curb planet-heating greenhouse gas pollution has never been more urgent as they prepare to meet in Dubai for the UN COP28 climate conference this month.