Palestinians desperately awaited a first delivery of international emergency aid to Gaza Friday, as Israeli forces pounded the enclave from the air and warned a ground invasion was coming "soon".

For 13 days Israel has launched relentless air strikes on the Palestinian territory in retaliation for cross-border Hamas raids that killed 1,400 people, mostly civilians who were shot, mutilated or burnt to death.

On Thursday, the Israeli army said it had destroyed a missile launch site and tunnels, claiming "more than 10 terrorists were eliminated".

Fears that the Israel-Hamas conflict might spread were growing Sunday, with Israeli troops poised to launch a ground offensive into Gaza, Tehran saying that if it does so "no one can guarantee control of the situation," and Washington expressing fears of possible Iranian involvement.

Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian issued the Iranian warning during an official visit Sunday to Qatar, adding that unless what he called the "barbaric attacks" on citizens and civilians in Gaza are stopped, the crisis may expand.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday took his campaign to pressure Hamas to the leaders of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, both eager to highlight their influence faced with at times uneasy alliances with Washington.

Since Hamas militants' bloody October 7 assault on Israel, which has launched relentless air strikes on Gaza in retaliation, Blinken has toured seven Middle Eastern countries in support of Israel, where he will return Monday.

Thousands turned out for a pro-Palestinian rally in Istanbul on Sunday, after sustained Israeli bombardment in the Gaza Strip and warnings about a ground attack there.

"They've been chasing people out of their homes for years. Now they're not killing people one by one day by day, they're killing them en masse," one of the marchers, Bayram Atabey, a shopkeeper in his thirties, told AFP.

As Israel prepares for a ground offensive into the Gaza Strip, the international community has mobilised to try to protect civilians and prevent the conflict spreading across the region.

But Israel's avowed determination to crush Hamas, the group behind the October 7 attack on Israel, are hampering mediation efforts. So too are clashes along Israel's northern border with Lebanon.

- A multitude of players -

One of Iran's most prominent film-makers, Dariush Mehrjui, was stabbed to death on Saturday evening alongside his wife at their home near Tehran.

A provincial chief justice said Mehrjui and his wife, Vahideh Mohammadifar, "were killed by multiple stab wounds to the neck", the judiciary's Mizan Online website said.

According to Hossein Fazeli-Harikandi, chief justice of Alborz province near Tehran, Mehrjui sent a text message to his daughter, Mona, at about 9:00 pm local time (1730 GMT) inviting her for dinner at their home in Karaj, west of Tehran.

Tens of thousands protested in Morocco Sunday in support of Palestinians amid the Gaza war, the biggest demonstration in the North African kingdom since it normalised ties with Israel in 2020.

Crowds stretching for two kilometres (more than a mile) marched through the capital Rabat in the mass rally called by an alliance of Islamist parties and a left-wing coalition.

"The people will liberate Palestine," demonstrators chanted while others waved huge Palestinian flags, donned keffiyehs and voiced "unconditional support for resistance to the occupation".

A businessman offered his contact list, a communications expert his publicity skills and an ex-diplomat negotiating tact: Israelis anguished and angered by the absence of information about the fate of hostages abducted by Hamas gunmen are marshalling their own resources to get their loved ones home.

Israel's military said Sunday it had confirmed that 126 people have been held captive since Hamas militants from the blockaded Gaza Strip attacked southern Israel on October 7. They gunned down civilians and dragged dozens of others, Israelis and foreigners, back to Gaza.

Israel's northern border with Lebanon is often tense, the legacy of past conflicts. But as Israel readies to invade Gaza, its army faces the threat of a two-front war.

Repeated fire in recent days has claimed lives on both sides of the UN-patrolled border between Lebanon and Israel, which remain technically at war.

If Israel does invade the Palestinian enclave of Gaza in its war on Hamas, Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah movement has warned it may escalate its military involvement.

Iran on Sunday warned that any Israeli ground offensive in the Gaza Strip could escalate conflicts elsewhere in the Middle East.

Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian held talks with Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, as Israeli troops massed on the border.

"No one can guarantee the control of the situation and the non-expansion of the conflicts," he said, according to an Iranian foreign ministry statement.