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Australia's southeast is in for an early taste of winter this weekend as a series of cold fronts moves in from the coast.

After a week of sporadic wet weather, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia will see an icy blast and more potential showers sweep through.

For the capital cities, temperatures will likely stay below 18C in Sydney and Melbourne will be even colder peaking at just 13C and 16C on Saturday and Sunday respectively.

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While most of the weekend showers will be concentrated around Victoria, Adelaide will see light showers and temperatures around 17C.

The Bureau of Meteorology warns Victoria will feel the brunt of the icy weather, bringing an end to an unseasonably warm autumn for the state.

"A cold front clears eastern parts [Friday] morning, with more fronts to follow early on Saturday and then early on Monday," BOM said in a statement.

The extreme cold will also bring snow to the Victorian Alps and NSW Snowy Mountains with falls as low as 900 metres by Sunday.

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READ MORE: 'Unusual' storms bring hail, floods and damaging winds

Perth, Brisbane and Darwin will see clear skies with the cold front staying concentrated along the southeast.

Meteorologists say this won't be the strongest cold front over the next few months but will mean bringing out the heater and throwing an extra blanket on the bed.

The Bureau says much of mainland Australia will see above average rainfall this winter, however WA's west coast and Queensland's northeast will be drier than past winters.

Israel's Foreign Ministry has denied their troops have invaded the Gaza Strip, despite a tweet from the Defence Forces appearing to say the opposite.

"IDF air and ground troops are currently attacking in the Gaza Strip," a tweet posted hours ago from the Israeli Defence Forces read.

But shortly afterwards, the Foreign Ministry issued a statement clarifying troops had not crossed the border.

READ MORE: Global airlines cancel flights to Israel

"There are currently no IDF ground troops inside the Gaza Strip," the statement read.

"IDF air and ground forces are carrying out strikes on targets in the Gaza Strip."

https://twitter.com/IDF/status/1392953390443991040

Overnight Israel called up 7000 military reservists.

It comes after four days of some of the most violent exchanges between Israel and Palestine in decades.

"I said we would extract a very heavy price from Hamas," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a videotaped statement earlier today.

"We are doing that, and we will continue to do that with heavy force."

The fighting broke out late on Monday when Hamas, claiming to be the defender of Jerusalem, fired a barrage of long-range rockets toward the city in response to what it said were Israeli provocations.

Israel quickly responded with a series of airstrikes.

Since then, Israel has attacked hundreds of targets in Gaza. The strikes set off scores of earth-shaking explosions across the densely populated territory.

READ MORE: Israel 'preparing ground forces' along Gaza border

Gaza militants have fired nearly 2000 rockets into Israel, bringing life in the southern part of the country to a standstill. Several barrages targeted the seaside metropolis of Tel Aviv, some 70km away.

Australia's Foreign Minister Marise Payne called for an end to the violence.

"We've unequivocally called on all leaders to take immediate steps to halt violence, to maintain restraint, and to restore calm," she said from Washington DC.

"Our strong view is that violence is no solution – no solution.

"Whether they are rocket attacks or indiscriminate acts that fuel the cycle of violence and bloodshed – they are also never justified."

READ MORE: Israel's 'Iron Dome' defence system explained

– Reported with Associated Press

In a major step toward returning to pre-pandemic life in the US, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention has eased mask-wearing guidance for fully vaccinated people, allowing them to stop wearing masks outdoors in crowds and in most indoor settings.

"Today is a great day for America," President Joe Biden said during a Rose Garden address heralding the new guidance.

"If you are fully vaccinated, you no longer need to wear a mask," he said, summarising the new guidance and encouraging more Americans to roll up their sleeves and "get vaccinated — or wear a mask until you do".

READ MORE: Every Australian adult could be vaccinated by Christmas

The guidance still calls for wearing masks in crowded indoor settings like buses, planes, hospitals, prisons and homeless shelters, but it will help clear the way for reopening workplaces, schools, and other venues — even removing the need for social distancing for those who are fully vaccinated.

"We have all longed for this moment — when we can get back to some sense of normalcy," Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, said at an earlier White House briefing.

The CDC and the Biden administration have faced pressure to ease restrictions on fully vaccinated people — those who are two weeks past their last required COVID-19 vaccine dose — in part to highlight the benefits of getting the shot.

The country's aggressive vaccination campaign has paid off: US virus cases are at their lowest rate since September, deaths are at their lowest point since last April and the test positivity rate is at the lowest point since the pandemic began.

Ms Walensky said the long-awaited change is thanks to the millions of people who have gotten vaccinated and is based on the latest science about how well those shots are working.

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"Anyone who is fully vaccinated can participate in indoor and outdoor activities -– large or small — without wearing a mask or physically distancing," Ms Walensky said.

"If you are fully vaccinated, you can start doing the things that you had stopped doing because of the pandemic."

The new guidance is likely to open the door to confusion, since there is no guaranteed way for businesses or others to distinguish between those who are fully vaccinated and those who are not.

Ms Walensky and Mr Biden said people who are not fully vaccinated should continue to wear masks indoors.

"We've gotten this far — please protect yourself until you get to the finish line," Mr Biden said, noting that most Americans under 65 are not yet fully vaccinated.

He said the government was not going to enforce the mask-wearing guidance on those not yet fully vaccinated.

"We're not going to go out and arrest people," Mr Biden added, saying he believes the American people want to take care of their neighbours.

"If you haven't been vaccinated, wear your mask for your own protection and the protection of the people who also have not been vaccinated yet."

To date about 154 million Americans, more than 46 per cent of the population, have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine and more than 117 million are fully vaccinated.

The rate of new vaccinations has slowed in recent weeks, but with the authorisation yesterday of the Pfizer shot for children ages 12 to 15, a new burst of doses is expected in the coming days.

"All of us, let's be patient, be patient with one another," Mr Biden said, acknowledging some Americans might be hesitant about removing their masks after more than a year of living in a pandemic that has killed more than 580,000 in the US and more than 3.3 million people worldwide.

READ MORE: Global airlines cancel flights to Israel amid invasion fears

Just two weeks ago, the CDC recommended that fully vaccinated people continue to wear masks indoors in all settings and outdoors in large crowds.

Ms Walensky said evidence from the US and Israel shows the vaccines are as strongly protective in real-world use as they were in earlier studies, and that so far they continue to work even though some worrying mutated versions of the virus are spreading.

The more people continue to get vaccinated, the faster infections will drop — and the harder it will be for the virus to mutate enough to escape vaccines, she stressed, urging everyone 12 and older who is not yet vaccinated to sign up.

And while some people still get COVID-19 despite being vaccinated, Ms Walensky said that's rare.

She cited evidence that those infections tend to be milder, shorter and harder to spread to others. If people who are vaccinated do develop COVID-19 symptoms, they should immediately put their mask back on and get tested, she said.

There are some caveats. Ms Walensky encouraged people who have weak immune systems, such as from organ transplants or cancer treatment, to talk with their doctors before shedding their masks.

That's because of continued uncertainty about whether the vaccines can rev up a weakened immune system as well as they do normal, healthy ones.

The new guidance had an immediate effect at the White House, which has taken a cautious approach to easing virus restrictions.

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Staffers were informed that masks are no longer required for people who are fully vaccinated and Mr Biden, who was meeting with vaccinated Republican lawmakers in the Oval Office when the guidance was announced, led the group in removing their masks yesterday afternoon.

First lady Jill Biden, who was travelling in West Virginia, told reporters that "we feel naked," after the guidance, as she and her party removed their face coverings. Then she paused. "I didn't mean it that way!"

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Two small planes have collided in the air near the United States city of Denver, leaving one aircraft nearly ripped in half and forcing the other's pilot to deploy a parachute. Remarkably, both planes landed safely and no one was injured, officials said.

Both planes were getting ready to land at a small regional airport in a Denver suburb on Wednesday (Thursday AEST) when they collided, according to the National Transportation Safety Board and South Metro Fire Rescue.

"Every one of these pilots needs to go buy a lottery ticket right now," Arapahoe County sheriff's Deputy John Bartmann said.

READ MORE: Qantas blames 'faulty sensor' for 'priority landing' at Brisbane Airport

"I don't remember anything like this — especially everybody walking away. I mean that's the amazing part of this."

In an audio clip from KDVR TV, the Key Lime Air pilot asked air traffic control for an immediate landing and declares an engine emergency, without realising the plane was almost split in half from the collision.

"Looks like the right engine failed so I'm gonna continue my landing here," the pilot said.

June Cvelbar told the KUSA TV station she saw the collision while walking in a state park.

"I saw a larger green plane, which I thought was a tow plane, along with what I thought was a glider being towed by it," she said.

"I heard a noise but didn't realise that the two planes had collided."

Ms Cvelbar said she saw the green plane fly off and shortly after saw the smaller plane deploy its parachute. She said she initially thought it was a training exercise.

"When I realised that the small plane was going down I ran toward it. The pilot and his passenger were up and about," she said.

Shelly Whitehead told KCNC-TV she was in her kitchen when she heard a loud bang that sounded like a firecracker.

She ran onto her patio and saw the plane that deployed the parachute coming down in the field behind her house.

"I thought, 'Is it somebody just jumping out of a plane?' And then I realised the parachute was attached to a plane," she said.

"I thought for sure they weren't going to make it out of there."

The pilot was the only person aboard a twin-engine Fairchild Metroliner that landed at Centennial Airport despite suffering major damage to its tail section.

The plane is owned by a Colorado-based company, Key Lime Air, that operates cargo aircraft.

A pilot and one passenger were on the other plane, a single-engine Cirrus SR22, which deployed a red-and-white parachute and drifted down to a safe landing in a field near homes in Cherry Creek State Park, Mr Bartmann said.

https://twitter.com/DenverChannel/status/1392560583950561281

Both Key Lime Air, a passenger and cargo charter company, and Independence Aviation, a flight school and aircraft rental firm that owns the Cirrus plane, are based outside Centennial Airport, one of the busiest general aviation airports in Colorado.

Independence Aviation said it rented the 2016 Cirrus SR22 plane on Wednesday and its pilot successfully deployed an airframe parachute system designed by Cirrus Aircraft to slow the craft's descent after a collision.

"At this time, we are allowing the NTSB and FAA to conduct their investigation," said a statement issued by Derek Severns of the Cirrus Platinum Training Center, a pilot training centre.

Authorities did not immediately identify the people who were in the planes.

The National Transportation Safety Board said on Twitter it was sending staff to investigate. Key Lime Air will cooperate with the investigation, the company said in a statement.

https://twitter.com/NTSB_Newsroom/status/1392554755180933121