Rocket attacks fired on Israel by Palestinian militants in Gaza were a "precipitating factor" in the conflict that has engulfed the two sworn enemies, a top U.S. official said Saturday.

Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said both President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agree that de-escalation is preferable, provided that Hamas ceases firing on Israel.

The president of Iraq's Kurdistan region has ordered its peshmerga security forces on high alert, a statement issued on Saturday said, attributing the move to clashes with central government forces.

An Iraqi general however said that the clashes in question came during an arrest attempt and did not involve the peshmerga.

Qatar's prime minister on Saturday delivered a biting criticism of Arab League meetings during emergency talks in Cairo, and called for a review of the pan-Arab body's dealing with the Palestinian issue.

"Our meetings have become a waste of money and a waste of time," Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani told Arab foreign ministers gathered to draw up a response to Israel's attack on Gaza.

Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal was in Cairo on Saturday to confer on ending the Gaza conflict but the Islamist group is reluctant to agree a ceasefire without guarantees Israel will honor it, a senior Hamas official said.

Meshaal was scheduled to meet with Egypt's intelligence chief as well as Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and Qatari Emir Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, both visiting Cairo, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Qatar is to give Egypt $10 million to help treat Palestinians wounded in Israeli air strikes on the neighboring Gaza Strip, state news agency QNA reported on Saturday.

The oil-rich Gulf nation will also send emergency aid including medical equipment and medicines to Hamas-controlled Gaza, it said.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday that Israel would be held to account for the children among 40 people dead in three days of air strikes on Gaza.

"Everyone must know that sooner or later there will be a holding to account for the massacre of these innocent children killed inhumanely in Gaza," he said in a speech at Cairo University.

A senior Iranian official has denied his country supplied the Fajr 5 missiles which Palestinian militants have been firing at Tel Aviv, Iran's al-Alam television reported on Saturday.

"We deny having delivered the Fajr 5 to the Palestinian resistance. The aim of such accusations is to portray the resistance as weak whereas it is perfectly capable of producing the arms it needs," said Allaeddine Boroujerdi, head of parliament's foreign affairs committee.

A prominent figure in Tunisia's Salafist movement, Mohammed Bakhti, died on Saturday after going on hunger strike over his arrest for an attack on the U.S. embassy, in the second such death this week, his lawyer said.

"He died in hospital at around 2 am (0100 GMT)," said Abdelbasset Ben Mbarek, noting that his death followed that of another member of the hardline Islamist movement, Bechir Gholli, who died on Thursday also after refusing food for nearly two months.

Syria's air force dropped deadly explosive-filled barrels on several rebel-held areas across the embattled country on Saturday, a monitoring group said.

After battles with the army that have lasted several weeks, rebels seized control of Hamdan airport in the eastern town of Albu Kamal in Deir Ezzor province on the border with Iraq, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Saturday condemned Israel's airstrikes on Gaza and called for an "immediate stop" to violence against civilians, a statement from his office said.

"President Hamid Karzai strongly condemns the strikes by Israel against the Palestinian territory that have killed and injured a number of innocent civilians," the statement said.