Syrian government forces have stepped up attacks on hospitals and clinics, U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon said Thursday, accusing all sides of blocking aid deliveries as a "tactic of war."

Ban told the U.N. Security Council in a report that both government forces and rebel fighters were increasingly targeting vital services such as water stations and electric cables, compounding the humanitarian crisis.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Thursday he hopes a ceasefire can be agreed in Gaza as the Palestinian death toll on day 17 of an Israeli offensive topped 788 people.

"So far, there is hope for a ceasefire," Abbas said after meeting Jordan's King Abdullah II in Amman, a palace statement said.

Iran provided Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas with the technology it has used to rain down rockets on Israel from Gaza, its parliament speaker said on Thursday.

Tehran frequently boasts of the financial and material support it gives to Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad but more rarely talks of its military assistance.

German flag carrier Lufthansa said Thursday it would continue to suspend flights to Tel Aviv for another 24 hours over security concerns amid the raging conflict in the Gaza Strip.

"We will resume flights as soon as the protection of the airport is assured in a tangible manner," it said in a statement.

Western nations are losing sympathy for Israel as casualties mount from its military operation in Gaza, Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said on Thursday.

Speaking on his first official visit to the region since taking over as Britain's foreign affairs chief, Hammond insisted however that the cause of the crisis was Hamas militants firing rockets from Gaza into Israel.

Two suicide car bombs exploded seconds and a few hundred meters (yards) apart in a busy area of central Baghdad Thursday, killing at least 13 people, police and medical sources said.

The blasts went off in Karrada, a district packed with shops and restaurants, shortly after the time when people gather for the iftar meal breaking the dawn-to-dusk fast many Iraqi Muslims observe during the holy month of Ramadan.

The United States on Thursday threw its weight behind the newly elected president of Iraq, Fuad Masum, and urged him to form a "cohesive government" to help fight Islamic militants.

"By taking this crucial step, the Council of Representatives has demonstrated its commitment to uniting the country according to the constitution," deputy State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said, offering Washington's congratulations on Masum's election.

The jihadist Islamic State group launched multiple attacks on government-held territory across northern and northeastern Syria on Thursday, a monitoring group said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it was the first time that IS, accused by rival rebel groups of focusing its formidable firepower more on them than on the Damascus regime, had launched such coordinated assaults on army positions.

A Kuwaiti opposition group said Thursday the revoking of citizenship of government opponents and licenses of media outlets is "unconstitutional" and described it as an act of "political vengeance."

"These are purely acts of political vengeance which are not based on the constitution, the basics of the law and the norms of the society," said a statement issued by a group of former opposition parliamentarians.

Far-right hawk Reuven Rivlin was sworn in as Israel's 10th president on Thursday at a formal ceremony in parliament which saw elder statesman Shimon Peres stepping down.

"In prayer, in awe and humility, on your behalf and at your command, I come to faithfully fulfill my role as 10th president of the state of Israel," he said, a skullcap on his head and his left hand resting on a copy of the Old Testament.