US must 'control' Israel to avert regional war: Iran

BEIRUT, Oct 13 (AFP/BBC/Reuters): The United States must rein in Israel to avert a regional spillover of the war with Hamas, Iran's top diplomat said Friday in Beirut, adding Tehran was seeking to safeguard Lebanon's security.

Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian spoke as Hamas and Israel traded heavy fire for a seventh day, after hundreds of Hamas gunmen stormed across the border from Gaza into Israel on Saturday and killed 1,200 people.

Israel has retaliated by raining air and artillery strikes on Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip, leaving more than 1,530 people dead.

"America wants to give Israel a chance to destroy Gaza, and this is... a grave mistake," Amir-Abdollahian said, adding, "if the Americans want to prevent the war in the region from developing, they must control Israel."

Although Tehran has been a long-term backer of Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, Iranian officials have been adamant the Islamic republic had no involvement in the militant group's weekend attack on Israel.

Hamas says 13 hostages killed

in Israeli strikes on Gaza

At least 13 Israeli and foreign hostages held in the northern Gaza Strip have been killed in Israeli air strikes in the past 24 hours, Hamas's armed wing said Friday.

In a surprise assault early Saturday, Hamas militants stormed Israeli communities near the Gaza border and fired barrages of rockets, in an attack that claimed more than 1,200 lives.

Israel says Hamas has taken more than 150 people hostage, including both civilians and security forces.

"Thirteen prisoners... including foreigners" were killed in five locations targeted by Israeli fighter jets, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades said in a statement.

Israel has rained air and artillery strikes on the blockaded Gaza Strip-a densely populated enclave of 2.4 million people-flattening buildings and killing more than 1,500 people.

Israel targets Hamas's

tunnels under Gaza

Israel says it is striking parts of a secret labyrinth of tunnels built underneath the Gaza Strip by Hamas, as it continues to retaliate for the Palestinian Islamist militant group's unprecedented cross-border attack on Saturday.

"Think of the Gaza Strip as one layer for civilians and then another layer for Hamas. We are trying to get to that second layer that Hamas has built," an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson said in a video on Thursday.

"These aren't bunkers for Gazan civilians. It's only for Hamas and other terrorists so that they can continue to fire rockets at Israel, to plan operations, to launch terrorists into Israel," they claimed.

Tens of thousands protest

after Juma across Mideast

Tens of thousands of Muslims demonstrated Friday across the Middle East in support of the Palestinians and against the intensifying Israeli bombardment of Gaza, underscoring the risk of a wider regional conflict as Israel prepares for a possible ground invasion.

From the typically sedate streets of downtown Amman in Jordan, to Yemen's war-scarred capital of Sanaa, crowds of Muslim worshippers poured into the streets after weekly Friday prayers, angered by devastating Israeli airstrikes on Gaza that began after the militant group Hamas launched an unprecedented surprise attack on Israel last Saturday.

At the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem's Old City, Israeli police were permitting only certain older men, women and children to enter the sprawling hilltop compound for prayers, trying to limit the potential for violence. Only 5,000 worshippers made it into the site, the Islamic endowment that manages the mosque said. On a typical Friday, some 50,000 perform the prayers.

Civilian losses from Israeli

operation unacceptable: Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday said an Israeli ground operation in Gaza would result in a level of civilian casualties that would be 'absolutely unacceptable'.

Putin was speaking after Israel's military called for all civilians of Gaza City, more than 1 million people, to relocate south within 24 hours, as it amassed tanks ahead of an expected ground invasion in response to a devastating weekend attack by the militant group Hamas.

Putin said that using heavy weaponry in residential areas was 'fraught with serious consequences for all sides'.