The death toll after three buildings collapsed in Morocco's largest city and commercial capital Casablanca rose to 23 on Sunday, officials said.

Fifteen bodies were recovered from the rubble in one day on Sunday, including two children and Moroccan actress Amal Maarouf and her mother, local authorities said.

A young man beat up a Moroccan rabbi in the economic capital of Casablanca over Israel's deadly air war on Gaza, a newspaper reported on Sunday.

Tel Quel said on its website that the attack took place on Friday as Moshe Ohayon was walking towards his synagogue.

The death toll after three buildings collapsed in Morocco's largest city and commercial capital Casablanca rose to 16 on Sunday, officials said.

Seven more bodies were recovered from the rubble during the day, including two children and Moroccan actress Amal Maarouf and her mother, they said, quoted by the MAP news agency, updating an earlier tally.

The death toll from the collapse of three buildings in Casablanca, Morocco's largest city, has risen to eight, local officials said Saturday.

Another 17 people were still in hospital after having been rescued from the rubble, said the officials, quoted by MAP news agency.

Human Rights Watch urged Morocco Monday to stop prosecuting and jailing people for their sexual orientation, after an appeals court upheld the convictions of six men accused of homosexual acts.

"Moroccan authorities should stop prosecuting and jailing people for their intimate behavior with other consenting adults," said HRW's regional director, Sarah Leah Whitson.

Fighting between African migrants in Morocco near the Spanish enclave of Melilla left at least 20 people injured on Sunday, local authorities said.

The unrest broke out in Gourougou forest overlooking the enclave where migrants gather waiting for a chance to sneak into Melilla as a passage to Europe.

Human Rights Watch warned Tuesday of political motives behind the jailing of a dissident Moroccan rapper and demanded that any appeals trial admit key evidence the judge rejected in convicting him.

Lhaqed, a voice of Morocco's February 20 protest movement who spent a year in prison for defaming the security forces, was handed a fresh four-month sentence on Tuesday for assaulting the police and public drunkenness at a football match in May.

Moroccan rapper Lhaqed, a voice of the February 20 protest movement who has already done jail time for defaming the security forces, was handed a four-month sentence Tuesday for assaulting the police.

The 26-year-old musician, whose real name is Mouad Belghawat, was arrested at a football match in May and accused of drunkenness in public, assaulting security agents and touting tickets on the black market.

Morocco is promoting its moderate version of Islam as a counterweight to the widening jihadist threat in the Sahara, training hundreds of imams from affected countries, but analysts question its motives.

The initiative is well-timed.

A Moroccan man is on hunger strike after being jailed for six months for a text message sent from his phone stating that the king's life was in danger, his brother said Friday.

Mohamed Zoujani, 28, was jailed at the beginning of June for "humiliating public authorities with false information," after several people received a text from his phone stating: "the king is in danger in Russia," his brother Mamdouh told Agence France Presse.