Malaysia Airlines has defended itself after confirming that it diverted a London to Kuala Lumpur flight over Syrian airspace when its usual route over Ukraine was closed in the wake of Thursday's MH17 crash.

Turkey's state television channel stopped broadcasting an ambitious TV drama series about the country's spy agency following warnings from police about a possible jihadist threat, local media reported on Monday. 

TRT stopped airing the "Kizilelma" ("The Red Apple") just three weeks after Turkish national police urged the company to take measures against the threats the drama could pose by drawing the wrath of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants, the Milliyet daily reported on its website. 

Turkey on Monday declared three days of national mourning for the Palestinian victims of Israel's military operation in the Gaza Strip, denouncing the assault as a "massacre."

"We condemn Israel's massacre of the Palestinian people," Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc told reporters in Ankara in televised comments after a cabinet meeting as the Palestinian death toll topped 500. 

The Turkish authorities on Monday imposed a curfew in the southeastern town of Hakkari after violent clashes blamed on a feud between two Kurdish families left one person dead.

The quarrel between the Pinyanisi and Ertosi clans turned violent on Sunday after hundreds of people got involved, attacking each other with knives and stones in the streets of the town of some 80,000 close to the borders with Iran and Iraq, media reports said.

Two Turkish tourists were killed when flood waters surged through a canyon that is a major tourist attraction in western Turkey, with the mayor of the area saying their deaths were "God's will", media reports said Monday.

Unseasonably heavy rains prompted the flooding on Sunday at the Saklikent canyon in the Mugla region on Turkey's Aegean coast, which is hugely popular with tourists in the summer months.

Egypt's foreign ministry on Sunday summoned Turkey's charge d'affaires over criticism of Cairo's handling of the war between Israel and Hamas in neighboring Gaza.

Turkey and Egypt withdrew their ambassadors last year after the military ousted Egyptian Islamist president Mohammed Morsi, who had forged closer ties with Turkey's devout premier, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday called on its NATO ally the United States to engage in "self-criticism" after it labeled his comments on Israel's Gaza assault "offensive."

"If America still says 'Israel is using its right to self-defense' it is America that needs to engage in self-criticism," Erdogan told the TGRT news channel.

The Gaza death toll hit 342 on Saturday as Israeli warplanes intensified their bombardment and troops pressed a ground assault on the 12th day of a major confrontation with Hamas.

The latest incident in Gaza saw one man killed in an air strike on the northern town of Jabaliya shortly after two were killed in a strike near Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said.

Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has slammed Turkey's handling of violent anti-Israeli protests in Ankara and Istanbul, in a diplomatic spat over the Jewish state's assault on Gaza.

Lieberman accused Turkey of not taking the "necessary preventative measures" to stop protests getting violent after people angered by the offensive in Gaza tried to storm Israeli embassy buildings.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday slammed Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as an illegitimate tyrant, saying that Cairo could not be relied upon to negotiate a ceasefire with Israel.

"Is Sisi a party (to a ceasefire)? Sisi is a tyrant himself," Erdogan told reporters.