The Israeli army said early Saturday that it was carrying out strikes in Syria after two rockets fired from the country fell into territory under its control.

Fighting raged Saturday across Gaza, where displaced Palestinians are "exhausted" with no end in sight to war between the besieged territory's Hamas rulers and Israel, now in its 13th week.

For the second time this month the Biden administration is bypassing Congress to approve an emergency weapons sale to Israel as Israel continues to prosecute its war against Hamas in Gaza under increasing international criticism.

The State Department said Friday that Secretary of State Antony Blinken had told Congress that he had made a second emergency determination covering a $147.5 million sale for equipment, including fuses, charges and primers, that is needed to make the 155 mm shells that Israel has already purchased function.

Residents of Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem's historic Armenian quarter rapidly mobilized when bulldozers rolled in to start work on a luxury hotel, a project they fear threatens the ancient but dwindling community.

The real estate deal which gives an Australian-Israeli investor roughly 25 percent of the Old City's Armenian quarter has sparked anger and concern among its residents.

Tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians have streamed into the overwhelmed town of Rafah in the southernmost end of Gaza in recent days, according to the United Nations, as Israeli forces on Friday continued to blast through dense areas in the center of the strip, killing dozens of people.

Israel's unprecedented air and ground offensive against Hamas has displaced some 85% of the Gaza Strip's 2.3 million residents, sending swells of people seeking shelter in Israeli-designated safe areas that the military has nevertheless also bombed. That has left Palestinians with a harrowing sense that nowhere is safe in the tiny enclave.

The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees said Friday an aid convoy came under fire by the Israeli military in the Gaza Strip without causing any casualties.

"Israeli soldiers fired at an aid convoy as it returned from northern Gaza along a route designated by the Israeli army -- our international convoy leader and his team were not injured but one vehicle sustained damage," UNRWA's director in Gaza, Tom White, wrote on X.

Israeli soldiers ignored cries for "help" when they stormed a Gaza building holding three hostages just days before killing them by mistake, said a military investigation published on Thursday.

The soldiers also heard "hostages" shouted in Hebrew on December 10, but interpreted that as a "terrorist deception attempt" by Hamas militants to lure them into the building in the Gaza City district of Shejaiya, the probe said.

Israeli air strikes hit southern Syria, the Syrian defence ministry said, with state media reporting attacks near the capital Damascus.

"At approximately 23:05 (20:05 GMT) today, the Israeli enemy carried out air strikes from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan, targeting some points in the southern region," the defence ministry said in a statement Thursday, reporting no casualties.

Egypt is due to host Friday a high-level Hamas delegation for talks aimed at putting an end to the nearly 12-week war with Israel that has devastated the Gaza Strip.

The Cairo meeting comes as fighting -- triggered by Hamas's deadly October 7 attack on Israel -- rages in the besieged Palestinian territory's south and centre.

A drone crashed near a village in the Israel-annexed Golan Heights, Israel's army said Thursday, after an Iraqi armed group with links to Hamas militants claimed responsibility for an attack in the area.