Hundreds of Jordanians demonstrated on Monday outside the prime minister's offices in protest against fuel price hikes that have met with public outcry over the past week, an AFP journalist said.

Around 500 protesters marched two kilometers (more than a mile) from the headquarters of Jordan's joint unions body in west Amman to the premier's building, chanting "Those raising fuel prices want to see the country burn," and "Beware the people's wrath."

Jordan's King Abdullah II called for an immediate halt to Israeli "aggression" against Gaza as he received Middle East Quartet envoy Tony Blair on Sunday, the royal palace said.

The monarch stressed "the need to speed up regional and international efforts to bring an immediate halt to Israeli aggression and military escalation," it said in a statement.

Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi will head a delegation to Gaza in a show of solidarity after Arab ministers decided on Saturday to review their diplomacy towards Israel and show their support for the Palestinians.

The delegation will travel to Gaza "to affirm solidarity with the Palestinians," a League statement said after the foreign ministers' meeting. Arabi told reporters it would head for the enclave either on Sunday or Monday.

Jordan's prime minister is defending his decision to raise prices for household fuel, four days after the move sparked unrest that left one person killed and scores wounded.

Abdullah Ensour says shaky state finances forced him to take the "painful decision" to hike heating and cooking gas by 54 percent and some oil derivatives by up to 28 percent.

Tough economic reforms biting hard in Jordan, which have pushed up fuel prices and triggered protests, are "a necessary pain" to meet the nation's challenges, a top U.S. official said Friday.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is traveling in Asia, spoke this week with Jordan's King Abdullah and "commended the Jordanian government's efforts to address their economic challenges, and the king's commitment to reform," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

Jordan's King Abdullah II on Friday told U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton in a phone call that he was "deeply worried" about Israel's air strikes on the Gaza Strip, a palace statement said.

"Clinton telephoned the king, who said he was deeply worried about the dangerous repercussions of Israel's aggression on Gaza and its impact on the region," the statement added.

Jordan's King Abdullah II has canceled a visit to Britain he was due to make next week, the British foreign ministry confirmed on Friday, amid unprecedented protests by Jordanians calling for him to quit.

Thousands of demonstrators, angered by spiraling fuel costs, gathered in Jordan's capital Amman on Friday shouting anti-Abdullah slogans.

Thousands of Jordanians have taken to the streets across the country to call for the ouster of their U.S.-backed monarch in the fourth day of unrest sparked by fuel price hikes that have threatened the stability of this Arab kingdom.

The protests came after similar rallies turned violent earlier this week, with one person killed and 75 others, including 58 policemen, injured in the unrest.

Saudi Arabia urged its citizens to stay away from public gatherings and universities in Jordan, where riots over fuel price hikes have left one person dead and 71 wounded, state news agency SPA reported.

The kingdom's embassy in Amman "warned Saudi employees and students in Jordan from going to public squares or approaching sites of gatherings and demonstrations," SPA said late on Thursday.

Jordan, home to tens of thousands of Syrians who have fled the conflict in their neighboring country, plans to set up a third camp near the border for unmarried male refugees, an official said on Wednesday.

"The government has allocated 100 dunums (10 hectares/24.7 acres) to receive 18,000 single refugees. Saudi Arabia will provide 1,800 tents," Anmar Hmud, a government spokesman for Syrian refugee affairs, told state-run Petra news agency.