Israeli strikes on Gaza killed at least 32 people Thursday as an air war entered its third day, with most of the bloodshed in the southern city of Khan Yunis, medics said.

The latest bloodshed raised to 83 the overall number of Gazans killed since Israel launched Operation Protective Edge early on Tuesday to halt cross-border rocket fire by militant groups.

The United Arab Emirates pledged $25 million in humanitarian aid Thursday to "support the steadfastness" of Palestinians in Gaza where Israeli strikes have killed more than 70 people in three days.

The Emirati Red Crescent will supervise delivery of the aid, WAM state news agency said, adding that the aid organization will also set up a field hospital in Gaza "to help the victims of the Israeli aggression".

The death toll in Syria's three-year war has eclipsed 170,000 people, one-third of them civilians, a monitoring group said in a new toll released on Thursday.

"Ever since the first casualty of the Syrian revolution was registered on March 18, 2011 in Daraa province, the deaths of 171,509 people have been documented," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Iraq's Kurds said Thursday Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was "hysterical" and not fit to run the country, further dimming the prospect of a new leadership uniting to face jihadist fighters.

The worsening political discord comes three days ahead of a planned parliamentary session meant to revive the process of replacing what has effectively been a caretaker government since April elections.

Egypt opened its Rafah border crossing to Gaza on Thursday to receive wounded Palestinians as Israel pounded the enclave with air strikes, an official at the border said.

Hospitals in north Sinai, which borders Gaza and Israel, have been placed on standby to receive the Palestinians, Egypt's official MENA news agency reported.

Qatar has confirmed the arrest in the United Arab Emirates of two of its citizens, described as "spies" by Emirati media, adding to tension between the Gulf neighbors.

Hamad Ali al-Hamadi and Yousef Abdelsamad al-Mulla were arrested on June 27 at the Ghweifat border crossing between Saudi Arabia and the UAE, a Qatari foreign ministry spokesman said in a statement.

Islamist militants that have swept across Iraq pose a clear and "imminent" danger to the Middle East, Europe and the United States, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Wednesday.

The Pentagon chief described the Sunni jihadists as a serious threat only days after suggesting Washington was not on the verge of any military action to help the Iraqi government in its fight with the extremists.

Three of the six Israelis held over the abduction and killing of a Palestinian teenager last week are to be released, Israeli media said on Wednesday.

"Three of six suspects in murder of Palestinian teen Mohammed Abu Khder to be freed Thursday," the Haaretz daily said.

Nobel peace laureate Desmond Tutu has lashed out at Israeli and Palestinian leaders for behaving "like children," seeking to blame each other for the latest bloody conflagration in the long-running conflict.

"Once again, the people of Israel and Palestine are embroiled in a deadly contest of tit-for-tat violence in which there can never be victors, only losers," the South African cleric said in a statement.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden called Kurdish leader Massud Barzani on Wednesday, on a day when the autonomous region was accused by Iraq's leader of harboring jihadists.

The accusation by Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki represented another blow to American hopes that religious and ethnic factions in the country will form a united government to challenge marauding Sunni radicals.