By Sam Tabahriti

LONDON (Reuters) -Pro-Palestinian protests were planned in several countries on Tuesday to mark the second anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel that led to the war in Gaza, despite warnings by some politicians that they could inflame tensions.

Hamas gunmen killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostage in the attack on October 7, 2023. Israel responded by launching an offensive against the Palestinian militant group in Gaza that has killed more than 67,000 people, Gaza health officials say.

(Reuters) -Syrian Defence Minister Murhaf Abu Qasra and SDF commander General Mazloum Abdi agreed on Tuesday to a comprehensive ceasefire on all fronts in north and northeastern Syria, the defence ministry said.

The truce is effective immediately, the ministry added.

Recent clashes between the two sides have cast a shadow over a landmark deal signed in March between the Kurdish-led SDF and Syria's new Islamist-led government to integrate the regional force into state institutions.

Pope Leo XIV will travel to Turkey and Lebanon in a six-day trip beginning late November, his first since becoming head of the Catholic Church, the Vatican said Tuesday.

The 70-year-old American is expected in Turkey from November 27-30, a visit that "will include a pilgrimage to Iznik on the occasion of the 1,700th anniversary of the First Council of Nicaea," Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said in a brief statement.

A subsequent trip to Lebanon will take place from November 30 to December 2, he said, adding that an itinerary would come later.

DUBAI (Reuters) -Qatar's foreign ministry spokesperson said on Tuesday that there were many details to be worked out on U.S. President Donald Trump's 20-point plan for the Gaza Strip.

(Reporting by Jana Choukeir and Ahmed Elimam; Editing by Aidan Lewis)

CENTRAL ISRAEL (Reuters) -The world came to know her as the little Israeli-American girl who lost her parents in Hamas' October 7 attack and was abducted by the militant group to Gaza. Two years on, with a new pink backpack, she's off to her first day of school.

"She was so excited," said her aunt and adoptive mother, Leron Mor, recalling how Avigail packed and unpacked her new backpack the night before she started first grade. "She was just glowing," Leron said, her voice breaking with emotion.

For Avigail's family, every moment of joy also bears pain.

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) -Pope Leo will travel to Turkey and Lebanon in late November, the Vatican announced on Tuesday, in the first visit outside Italy by the new leader of the 1.4-billion-member global Catholic Church.

Leo, the first U.S. pope, will visit Turkey from November 27-30 before heading to Lebanon from November 30 to December 2, where he is expected to speak about the plight of Christians in the Middle East and to make appeals for peace across the region.

Two years after Hamas gunmen attacked the Nova festival in southern Israel, the desert site stands as both grave and shrine, where the living come to mourn the dead.

More than 370 revellers were massacred when Palestinian militants crossed from Gaza into Israel in the early hours of October 7, 2023, attacking the music festival and several nearby communities.

On Tuesday at dawn, dozens of relatives returned to the site, embracing one another and mourning the dead, an AFP correspondent reported.

By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Maayan Lubell

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (Reuters) -Israeli tanks, boats and jets pounded parts of Gaza on Tuesday, giving Palestinians no respite on the anniversary of the Hamas attack that led to two years of war and underlining the challenges at talks on Donald Trump's plan to halt the conflict.

Israel pressed on with its offensive, residents said, after Hamas and Israel began indirect negotiations on Monday in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on sensitive issues such as Israel's withdrawal from Gaza and Hamas' disarmament.

(Reuters) -Tuesday marked the two-year anniversary of Palestinian militant group Hamas' attack on Israel that triggered the ongoing offensive in the Gaza Strip.

Following are reactions from world leaders and others:

EU COMMISSION PRESIDENT URSULA VON DER LEYEN:

"We will never forget the horror of the Hamas attacks on 7 October and the pain they caused to innocent victims, their families and the entire people of Israel, two years ago.

GAZA, October 7 (Reuters) -Two years of Israeli bombardment of Gaza has piled grief upon grief for displaced Palestinian Inas Abu Maamar.

In the first days of the war, a Reuters photograph showed Abu Maamar stricken in a hospital morgue, cradling the shrouded body of her five-year-old niece Saly.

Since then, Israeli airstrikes and tank shells have killed many of her close relatives and left her bereaved, hungry and homeless, caring for her orphaned young nephew.