America's top diplomat landed in Qatar on Monday to take in a World Cup match and hold talks as regional tensions remain high amid Iran's rapid advancement of its nuclear program and nationwide protests shaking the Islamic Republic.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, a soccer fan and player himself, will attend as America faces Wales on Monday night at Ahmad bin Ali Stadium.

Hundreds of fans gathered at a sports hall in Gaza City on Sunday, which Qatar prepared for the Palestinian residents of the impoverished territory to watch the World Cup matches for free.

The fans looked attentively at the large screen as the opener game between Qatar and Ecuador kicked off.

Rockets fired from Syria towards Turkey's border town of Karkamis on Monday killed three people, including a child, and wounded six, Turkey's interior minister said.

"Three of our citizens lost their lives. One of them is a child, another a teacher," Suleyman Soylu said on live television, vowing a "strong response".

An Israeli court ruled Monday that former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert defamed his successor, Benjamin Netanyahu, and ordered him to pay damages to the former leader and his family.

The high-profile defamation suit that kicked off earlier this year pitted the only Israeli prime minister ever to go to prison against the ousted longest-serving leader of the country.

Iran launched new cross-border missile and drone strikes overnight to Monday against Kurdish opposition groups in Iraq, killing at least one fighter from the groups it accuses of stoking a wave of protests.

The Islamic republic has been shaken by over two months of demonstrations sparked by the death of Kurdish-Iranian woman Mahsa Amini, 22, after her arrest for allegedly breaching the strict dress code for women.

Turkish air strikes hit several towns across northern Syria, including the city of Kobane, late Saturday, said Kurdish-led forces there and a Britain-based monitoring group.

The Turkish raids killed at least six members of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and six pro-regime soldiers, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said.

Israeli strikes on Saturday morning killed four Syrian regime soldiers and wounded one in central and western districts, Syrian state media reported.

The defense ministers of Israel and Greece on Friday stressed the importance of maintaining strong alliances to tackle global and regional threats, citing challenges such as the war in Ukraine and ongoing tension in the eastern Mediterranean.

"The world is changing," Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said after meeting in Athens with his Greek counterpart, Nikolas Panagiotopoulos. "The implications of the war in Ukraine bleed through national borders. The politics of extremism and terrorism impacts countries across the globe."

Twenty-one victims of a fire that tore through a top-floor apartment in the Gaza Strip during a birthday party were members of the same family, two of their relatives said Friday.

Thousands later joined a funeral procession for the victims.

The U.S. military said a rocket attack late Thursday targeted international coalition forces in northeast Syria, without causing any casualties.