An Arab League delegation headed by the bloc's chief Nabil al-Arabi will visit Gaza on Tuesday in a show of support for the territory in the face of Israeli air strikes, a league official said.

"The Arab ministerial delegation formed by the Arab foreign ministerial council will visit Gaza on Tuesday, headed by Nabil al-Arabi," the official said in a statement .

Damascus deems hostile a decision by France to host an ambassador from the newly formed Syrian opposition National Coalition, a Syrian minister said in key regional ally Iran on Sunday.

"France is acting like a hostile nation," Ali Haidar, minister for national reconciliation, told Agence France Presse.

A ground invasion of the Gaza Strip would lose Israel much international sympathy and support, British Foreign Secretary William Hague warned Sunday.

Hague told Sky News television it was much more difficult to limit civilian casualties in a ground assault and it would threaten to prolong the conflict.

Gunmen riding on motorcycles have killed a prominent politician in Nigeria's second city of Kano, officials said Sunday amid a wave of similar shootings blamed on a radical Islamist group.

Boko Haram insurgents have attacked scores of political leaders and other symbols of authority in Nigeria's restive north. A police source, who confirmed the killing, said the group may be responsible for the latest violence.

Iran expects regional countries to send weapons to the Palestinians to help them fight Israel, parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani said on Sunday.

"Although political measures taken by the regional countries are admirable, they are definitely not sufficient," Larijani said in remarks reported by the official IRNA news agency.

Iran on Sunday warned against sending weapons to Syrian rebels battling its ally in Damascus, saying that this would threaten regional stability and increase the "risk of terrorism."

"Some countries envisage arming the opposition with heavy and semi-heavy weaponry," Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said in a speech to open an inter-Syria dialogue in Tehran.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel is ready to "significantly expand" its operation against militants in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip as it entered its fifth day.

"The army is prepared to significantly expand the operation," Netanyahu said at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting. "The soldiers are ready for any activity that could take place."

Pope Tawadros II was enthroned as the new leader of Egypt's Coptic Christian minority on Sunday in a ceremony at Cairo's St Mark's Cathedral attended by Prime Minister Hisham Qandil.

Tawadros, 60, was chosen on November 4 to succeed Pope Shenuda III, who died in March after four decades on the patriarchal throne.

Talks on the possibility of a truce to end five days of violence in and around Gaza are under way, and a deal could be reached "today or tomorrow," a Palestinian official told Agence France Presse on Sunday.

"There are serious talks to reach a truce, and it is possible that understandings will be reached today or tomorrow," the senior official said.

Rebels in the eastern DR Congo warned U.N. peacekeepers Sunday that "we will respond" if they do not stop backing the regular army by strafing rebel positions.

"We warn MONUSCO, which is strafing our areas instead of showing its neutrality on the ground, that it must stop! ... If they continue to strafe us we will respond," spokesman of the M23 rebel movement Lieutenant Colonel Vianney Kazarama told Agence France Presse.