With tensions spiking in the Middle East, U.S. forces in the region are facing increasing threats as a Navy warship shot down missiles appearing to head toward Israel Thursday and American bases in Iraq and Syria were repeatedly targeted by drone attacks.

Later, a U.S. official said there had been a rocket attack early Friday morning on U.S. and coalition forces at a diplomatic support center near the Baghdad International Airport. Initial assessments indicated two rockets were fired, the official said, noting that one was intercepted by a counter-rocket system and the other struck an empty storage facility.

The death toll from a raid by Israeli troops in the occupied West Bank rose to 13, Palestinian health officials said Friday, as casualties mounted in the territory while war rages in Gaza.

At least 81 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli troops or settlers in the West Bank since the Gaza conflict erupted on October 7, according to figures from the Palestinian health ministry in Ramallah.

Israel pounded the Gaza Strip with airstrikes on Thursday, including in the south where Palestinians were told to take refuge, and the country's defense minister told ground troops to "be ready" to invade, though he didn't say when.

Gaza's overwhelmed hospitals tried to stretch out ebbing medical supplies and fuel for diesel generators to keep the equipment running, as authorities worked out logistics for a delivery of aid into from Egypt. Doctors in darkened wards across Gaza stitched wounds by mobile phone light, and others used vinegar to treat infected wounds.

Hamas fighters likely fired North Korean weapons during their Oct. 7 assault on Israel, a militant video and weapons seized by Israel show, despite Pyongyang's denials that it arms the militant group.

South Korean officials, two experts on North Korean arms and an Associated Press analysis of weapons captured on the battlefield by Israel point toward Hamas using Pyongyang's F-7 rocket-propelled grenade, a shoulder-fired weapon that fighters typically use against armored vehicles.

As desperate Palestinians in sealed-off Gaza try to find refuge under Israel's relentless bombardment in retaliation for Hamas' brutal Oct. 7 attack, some ask why neighboring Egypt and Jordan don't take them in.

The two countries, which flank Israel on opposite sides and share borders with Gaza and the occupied West Bank, respectively, have replied with a staunch refusal. Jordan already has a large Palestinian population.

Israeli emergency cabinet minister Benny Gantz has said that the ongoing Israel-Hamas war is likely to take months, and could potentially include a northern front as well.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will host Jordan's King Abdullah II for a summit in Cairo on Thursday, the presidency said, as violence in the neighboring Gaza Strip spirals.

The Jordanian royal court said in a statement that the two leaders would "discuss means to stop the Israeli aggression on Gaza".

Coalition forces were slightly injured in Iraq in a spate of drone attacks over the last 24 hours at U.S. bases in Iraq as regional tensions flare following the deadly explosion at a hospital in Gaza.

Two drones targeted the al Asad airbase in western Iraq used by U.S. forces and one drone targeted a base in northern Iraq, a U.S. official told The Associated Press. U.S. forces intercepted all three, destroying two but only damaging the third, which led to minor injuries among coalition forces at the western base, according to a statement Wednesday by U.S. Central Command.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has agreed to open the Rafah crossing into Gaza to allow a first batch of around 20 humanitarian aid trucks through, U.S. President Joe Biden said.

"He agreed to... let up to 20 trucks through to begin with," Biden told reporters after calling Sisi from Air Force One while returning from a visit to Israel, where he was showing solidarity over the October 7 Hamas attacks.

The Israeli government struck a Syrian military position in the war-torn country's south, a war monitoring NGO said.

"Sounds of explosions rang out in the province of Quneitra after an Israeli strike against a Syrian army position," said the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has a vast network of sources in the country.