U.S. Airways plans to resume its direct flights from Philadelphia to Tel Aviv on Thursday after a temporary ban from federal authorities on flights to Israel amid an intensifying conflict with the Palestinians.

Several thousands Wednesday held a fresh protest in Paris against the Israeli offensive in Gaza amid tight security days after similar rallies descended into violence and looting.

Police said the rally gathered about 14,500 people, while organizers put the figure at 25,000.

Secretary of State John Kerry told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday that a U.S. ban on flights to Israel was solely due to safety concerns.

Airlines blocked flights to Israel Wednesday after a Gaza rocket struck near airport runways, as the U.N. chief urged an end to a conflict that has killed 639 Palestinians and 31 Israelis.

As the violence entered its 16th day, neither Israel nor Islamist movement Hamas appeared willing to end hostilities, despite days of diplomatic efforts to coax them into a truce.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius on Tuesday blasted as unacceptable the number of Palestinian casualties as Israel continued its bloody offensive on Gaza.

"It's unacceptable that a country be threatened by rockets, but the response has to be proportionate," he said in a televised interview, as the Palestinian death toll rose to more than 620 on the 15th day of a conflict that has also killed 29 Israelis.

The Palestinian envoy to the United Nations held up photographs of slain children and read out the names of the dead on Tuesday as he pleaded for action from the Security Council.

"On behalf of the Palestinian people, we ask: What is the international community doing to stop this bloodletting, to stop Israel's atrocities?" Riyad Mansour said at a debate on the Gaza crisis.

A rocket fired from Gaza hit north of Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport on Tuesday, police said, prompting U.S. and European airlines to suspend flights to and from Israel.

"A house was damaged in a rocket strike in the Kiryat Ono Yehud region, several kilometers (miles) from the airport," police spokeswoman Luba Samri told Agence France Presse.

The foreign ministers of Germany, France and Italy on Tuesday condemned anti-Semitic slurs and violence at pro-Palestinian demonstrations in Europe and pledged to take firm action.

Frank-Walter Steinmeier of Germany, France's Laurent Fabius and Italy's Federica Mogherini issued a joint statement in Brussels warning of a rise in anti-Jewish incidents in Europe during the bloody conflict in Gaza.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health announced on Tuesday that at least 624 people have been killed and another 3750 since the start of the Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip.

In the latest attacks, Israeli strikes killed at least 13 women and children in Gaza, medics said, as the army announced the deaths of two more soldiers in the two-week conflict.

Israeli soldiers should be given the Nobel Peace Prize for the "unimaginable restraint" they are showing in fighting Hamas, Israel's ambassador to the U.S. has said, backing his country's right to self-defense.

Ambassador Ron Dermer made the comments at an event hosted by the Christians United for Israel group late Monday, according to a text of the speech posted on his Facebook page.