Palestinians fired a mortar round into southern Israel Tuesday in the first attack since an August 26 ceasefire, without causing any casualties, the Israeli army said.

"For the first time since operation Protective Edge, a mortar shell fired from Gaza hit southern Israel," Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner said on Twitter, referring to the military offensive in Gaza.

Survivors of the most deadly migrant shipwreck in years have described the horrifying moment traffickers capsized their boat and left them to drown, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said Tuesday.

"After they hit our boat they waited to make sure that it had sunk completely before leaving. They were laughing," one survivor told IOM.

The United Nations has brokered an Israeli-Palestinian deal on imports of construction materials to Gaza to ensure they will not be diverted by Hamas militants, an envoy said Tuesday.

The agreement on monitoring the supply of materials "must get up and running without delay," said Robert Serry, the U.N. envoy for the Middle East.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday called for an increase in defense spending, after a bloody and costly war in Gaza.

"There is no leader who, faced with the threats that are multiplying around us, would not allow or demand a significant increase in the defense budget, to counter security challenges," he said in a statement.

As hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children returned to school in Gaza on Sunday, Azhar recited a poem eulogizing her father, killed by Israeli shelling in the enclave's recent conflict.

"Daddy, what can I tell you, if I say I love you it's not enough," the nine-year-old, who was beginning the fourth grade, read to a classroom of teary children.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Jewish leaders will speak Sunday at a Berlin rally against anti-Semitism after the latest Gaza conflict sparked an upsurge in hate speech against Jews.

Under the banner "Stand Up: Jew Hatred - Never Again!" political and religious leaders and thousands of people are expected at the rally from 1300 GMT at the iconic Brandenburg Gate.

Fifty Palestinian families made homeless by Israeli bombing during the summer's fierce offensive on the Gaza Strip were rehoused Saturday in mobile homes in the southern town of Khan Yunis.

During the 50-day conflict, 9,800 homes were totally destroyed and another 8,000 left uninhabitable, according to data from the housing ministry in Gaza.

Hamas' exiled deputy leader said on Thursday the group could be forced to negotiate directly with Israel, ahead of planned talks in Cairo to consolidate a truce.

But an Israeli minister dismissed any possibility of talking directly with the Islamist movement, whose charter calls for the destruction of the Jewish state.

Cuba has sent six tons of drugs and medical supplies to Gaza, devastated from seven weeks of war with Israel that killed more than 2,100 people, official media reported Thursday.

The government-run Cubadebate website said the humanitarian shipment was delivered by  officials at Cuba's embassy in Cairo to the Palestinian representative there.

Israel's deputy foreign minister warned Thursday that Hamas was likely to resume "violence" if it feels it has made no political gains from upcoming talks in Cairo.