Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Tuesday that NATO member Ankara would formally ask the alliance for Patriot missiles to protect its border with conflict-wracked Syria.

"(Patriots) are a precautionary measure, for defense in particular," Davutoglu told reporters before he left Ankara for Gaza. "We will submit the formal request as soon as possible."

Two mortars hit the Syrian Ministry of Information building in Damascus on Tuesday morning, leaving no casualties and causing minimal damage, state news agency SANA said.

The building is also home to the newspaper of the Baath Party, which holds a monopoly on power in the country, and is located on the Mazzeh highway in the west of the city.

The Kuwaiti opposition has announced it will stage a major demonstration on the eve of the December 1 parliamentary election as a finale to its nationwide campaign to urge a boycott of the disputed polls.

The Islamist, nationalist and liberal opposition all say the poll boycott is in protest at the government's unilateral amendment of the electoral law, which it says breaches the constitution.

China backed calls Tuesday for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza conflict and urged the U.N. Security Council and the international community to bring peace to the region.

A statement by China's Foreign Ministry came as senior Israeli ministers decided overnight to hold off from launching a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip to give Egyptian-led truce efforts a chance to work.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will leave Asia on Tuesday to visit Israel, Egypt and Ramallah, stepping up U.S. efforts to avoid a worsening of the Gaza crisis, an official said.

Clinton will meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and discuss the crisis with Egyptian and Palestinian leaders, after leaving President Barack Obama's trip to Southeast Asia, said senior Obama aide Ben Rhodes.

At least 20 Palestinians were killed on Tuesday as Israeli air strikes rocked the Gaza Strip, medics in the Hamas-ruled territory said, as a rocket fired by Palestinian militants exploded near Jerusalem.

Two cameramen from Hamas-owned Al-Aqsa TV were among six people killed in a series of Israeli air raids on Gaza City and the north, a Hamas spokesman said.

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday urged all sides to the Gaza conflict to immediately cease their fire, warning at a news conference in Cairo that an escalation will endanger the whole region.

"All sides must halt fire immediately," Ban said, as an Israeli military operation against rocket-firing militants in Gaza entered a seventh day, with 116 Palestinians and three Israelis killed.

Israel's President Shimon Peres accused Iran Monday of encouraging the Palestinians to continue rocket attacks on Israel rather than negotiating a ceasefire, saying "they are out of their mind."

At the same time, Peres praised Egypt's President Mohammed Morsi for the constructive role he has played in the intensifying crisis.

The U.N. Security Council hit deadlock Monday on a statement on the Gaza conflict with the United States saying it opposes any action that undermines efforts to reach a ceasefire.

But Russia warned that unless an Arab-proposed statement calling for Israel-Hamas hostilities to end was agreed by Tuesday morning it would press for a vote on the full council resolution -- setting up a potential veto clash with the United States.

Protesters in Egypt's capital clashed with police on Monday during a protest to mark a year since a five-day long street battle with security forces in which dozens of protesters were killed, witnesses said.

The clashes erupted when demonstrators tried to destroy a concrete barrier security forces had put up to end last year's fighting with activists who wanted the military rulers at the time to transfer power to a civilian government.