Despite intensifying diplomatic efforts to ease five days of fighting between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza, Israel's air force struck several sites in the strip overnight, while rockets again tore towards the Jewish state.

"We're on track for the second year of this pandemic to be far more deadly than the first," said WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

The plane touched down in Darwin on Saturday morning after picking up vulnerable passengers from New Delhi, but 72 of its booked passengers were barred from flying after 48 tested positive for Covid-19 and others were deemed close contacts.

The army said "the assailant arrived in his vehicle to a military post adjacent to the community of Ofra, north of Ramallah, and accelerated" towards a soldier before the attempted stabbing.

The former chairman of Saudi Bin Ladin group and a half-brother of Osama bin Laden, was released a few days ago but is still barred from travel, the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said.

The flight will be the first after the lifting of a two-week ban on anyone coming from India, including Australian citizens, aimed at keeping out a fast-spreading variant of the novel coronavirus.

Kathmandu-based Seven Summit Treks identified the American as Puwei Liu, 55, and the Swiss national as Abdul Waraich, 41. Both died Wednesday, it said.

"The United States will not leave Australia alone on the field, or maybe I should say, alone on the pitch, in the face of economic coercion by China," Blinken told a joint press conference with his Australian counterpart Marise Payne following talks in Washington.

"We're also deeply concerned about the violence in the streets of Israel," Blinken said. 

The three-day festival, which marks the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, is traditionally celebrated with mosque prayers, family feasts and shopping for new clothes, gifts and sweets.

The department on the same day released an annual report on international religious freedom which highlighted the US government's concerns over Beijing's repression of Uyghurs and members of other Muslim groups in Xinjiang through mass arbitrary detention, forced labor, forced sterilization and other abuses.

A spokesman for Hamas' armed wing announced the launch of the 250 kilogram (550 pound) rocket and demanded that "all international airlines immediately halt their flights to any airports" in the Jewish state.

Intra-communal violence has flared in Israel as Jerusalem unrest has spiralled into a conflict in which the Islamist group Hamas has fired rockets from Gaza and Israel has launched air strikes.

Tough lockdowns and its geographical location has helped New Zealand eliminate the novel coronavirus within its borders, but left the country of 5 million isolated from the rest of the world.

India recorded more than 4,000 COVID-19 deaths for a second straight day on Thursday, while infections stayed below 400,000 for a fourth day, though the virus has become rampant in rural areas where cases can go unreported due to a lack of testing.

Tunisia, Norway and China have requested another emergency United Nations Security Council meeting be scheduled Friday on the worsening hostilities between Israel and Palestinians, despite ongoing US resistance for the body to take a role in the conflict.

The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response (IPPPR) said a series of bad decisions meant Covid-19 went on to kill at least 3.3 million people so far and devastate the global economy.

Flight AF447 plunged into the Atlantic Ocean during a storm on June 1, 2009, the deadliest crash in Air France's history.

"Millions of people across the country have invited me to stand for election, and even ordered me to come here to register, placing a heavy responsibility on my shoulders," Ahmadinejad said, speaking after he submitted his application to the interior ministry.

The discovery of 71 corpses in Bihar state stoked fears that the virus was raging unseen in India's vast rural hinterland where two-thirds of its people live.

According to the health ministry, 4,205 people died in the past 24 hours -- a new record -- taking total fatalities to 254,197. 

"The president gave an order to urgently work out a new provision concerning the types of weapons that can be in civilian hands, taking into account the weapon" used in the attack, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. 

Israel on Tuesday firmly defended the conduct of its officers, insisting they have responded to violent Palestinian rioters with appropriate measures. 

There had been speculation that Emanuel would become envoy to China, but that job is expected to go to former top US diplomat Nick Burns, the report said, citing multiple sources familiar with the Biden team's discussions. 

An Australian naval ship is also taking part in the week-long air, land and sea exercises involving 300 ground troops from the three countries.

The President has joined calls from nations around the world, including a damning statement from the UN human rights office castigating Israel, to urge the UNSC to take action against the latest violence targeting Palestinians in Jerusalem.

"We have consistently argued at the WHO that there shouldn't be a geographical void in dealing with international health issues," Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato told a press conference.

"We categorically reject the baseless fabrications of individual journalists and reiterate that Russia does not conduct 'malicious' activity in the virtual space," the Russian embassy in the United States said in a statement.

Commissioner Daniel Therrien revealed his probe of the world's largest porn site and its Montreal-based parent MindGeek at a parliamentary committee hearing.

"China has been closely tracking its trajectory and issued statements on the re-entry situation in advance," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters. "There was no need for some media to make exaggeration and create panic."