Israel on Friday ordered some of its diplomatic staff in Turkey to leave the country for security reasons, after protesters angered by its assault on Gaza sought to storm Israeli embassy buildings.

Turkish protesters overnight tried to break into the ambassador's residence in Ankara as well as the consulate in Istanbul, with the diplomatic controversy over the Gaza assault risking a new crisis in relations between Turkey and Israel.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday launched his most bitter attack yet against Israel over its air campaign in the Gaza Strip, accusing Israel of seeking a "systematic genocide" of the Palestinians.

Erdogan, a pious Muslim who sees himself as a champion of the Palestinian cause, has in the last days intensified his rhetoric against Israel as he presents himself as a leader of the entire Islamic world ahead of August 10 elections in Turkey.

Turkey is to take "drastic measures" to deal with the influx of tens of thousands of Syrian refugees into its biggest city Istanbul, including forcibly sending them to camps in the southeast, the city's top official said Wednesday.

Istanbul governor Huseyin Avni Mutlu said that there were now 67,000 Syrian refugees in the city and legislation would now be adopted that could see them effectively expelled from the city of 15 million to refugee camps closer to Syria.

Kurdish candidate Selahattin Demirtas predicted Tuesday he could make it to a second round in Turkey's presidential elections as he presented a radical agenda to counter the bid of the favorite, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Demirtas, a 41-year-old lawyer, has been expected to struggle to break into double figures in the country's first democratic presidential elections, which are shaping up as a two-horse race between Erdogan and the opposition candidate Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu.

Hundreds of Kurdish fighters have entered northern Syria to help battle jihadists besieging the Kurdish city of Ain al-Arab, a monitor said Tuesday.

"At least 800 Kurdish fighters crossed the Turkish-Syrian border to help their comrades in Ain al-Arab (Kobane in Kurdish), which is under total siege by Islamic State jihadists," Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman told Agence France Presse.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday stepped up his rhetoric against Israel over its deadly air offensive on Gaza, accusing the Jewish state of committing "state terrorism" against the Palestinians.

Presenting himself as the sole world leader speaking up for the Palestinians, Erdogan said that any normalization in the troubled ties between Israel and Ankara was currently out of the question.

Turkey is seeking to host a conference for Muslim scholars in Istanbul during the upcoming days to reject extremism and violence and to safeguard Islam against the so-called "caliphate" that was declared by Sunni militants in Iraq and Syria.

A Turkish envoy held talks with several Muslim scholars and clerics in Beirut to invite them to attend a conference in Istanbul between July 17 and 19, As Safir newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan rejected Monday a donation from his main rival in August's presidential election in a highly unusual gesture for the sometimes bruising world of Turkish politics.

The main opposition candidate Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu donated 1,000 lira ($470) to Erdogan's campaign fund and transferred a similar sum to the third candidate, the pro-Kurdish HDP's candidate Selahattin Demirtas.

A teenage protester killed during last year's mass street demonstrations in Turkey died of head injuries, according to autopsy reports presented Monday to the court trying police officers for his death.

Ali Ismail Korkmaz, 19, died after being pummeled with baseball bats and truncheons in the western city of Eskisehir in June last year -- one of eight people killed in the three weeks of unrest that threw up a serious challenge to the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

A 25-year-old Kurd who is Turkey's youngest mayor slammed on Monday as "ridiculous" a four-year jail sentence she was handed for taking part in protests she claims she did not attend.

A court in the southeastern regional capital Diyarbakir said Monday she had been convicted because judges believed the profile of her nose and mouth matched that of a protester filmed at a violent Kurdish rally.