Four hundred and eighty academics, lawyers, community activists and others criticized Canada's government for taking a decisively pro-Israel position amid the current conflict in the Gaza Strip, saying it "discredits Canada."

In an open letter published in the daily Globe and Mail, they said they "are profoundly perturbed by the unbalanced and partisan position adopted by the Canadian government and federal political parties regarding the current violence in Gaza."

A rocket was fired overnight on Friday from the South towards Israel, announced the army in a statement.

It said that unknown assailants fired the rocket from the outskirts of the town of Beit Lahya at 1:50 am and it landed near the Rashaya al-Fukhar town.

Israeli security forces were on heightened alert Friday after a Palestinian man was shot dead during a huge protest in the West Bank against Israel's military offensive in Gaza.

Palestinian factions in the West Bank declared a "Day of Rage" after the Thursday night clashes, which took place around the West Bank and in some sectors of Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem.

Signs of renewed efforts for a Gaza ceasefire were evident on Friday as the death toll continued to climb after Israel shelled a U.N. shelter killing 15 Palestinians.

Israel's secretive security cabinet was expected to meet later in the day to discuss truce proposals passed to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry earlier in the week, Israeli media said.

Fifteen people were killed Thursday when Israeli fire hit a U.N. shelter in Gaza, as the Palestinian toll in the 17-day conflict rose to 798, medics said.

Emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said at least 15 people had been killed and 200 wounded by Israeli shelling of a school run by the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in the northern town of Beit Hanun, where hundreds of civilians had sought refuge from the violence.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry worked the phones, including with Hamas allies, on Thursday, as he pressed efforts to end the bloodshed in Gaza, but aides warned gaps remained.

A day after he flew into Israel and cited signs of progress, Kerry was hunkered down in Egypt -- which drafted a proposal to halt the Israel-Hamas conflict -- and spoke to regional leaders by telephone.

Several hundred protesters demanded a halt to Israel's ground offensive in Gaza during a peaceful demonstration Thursday outside the Israeli embassy in Madrid.

About 400 demonstrators, many of them waving Palestinian flags in red, white, green and black, chanted "murderers" as police looked on.

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.

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.