In her first sit-down interview since returning from sick leave, Federal Minister Linda Reynolds said she's prepared to be formally interviewed by Federal Police as part of the investigation into Brittany Higgins' rape allegation.

The former Defence Minister told 9News she had completed a formal statement, and was "assisting the AFP in their investigation into that matter".

In the 9News interview, Ms Reynolds reflected on what she said was a "difficult time for many people given the subject matter".

READ MORE: Investigation into who in PM's office knew about Higgins' rape allegation

When asked if she had any regrets in her handling of the issue, Ms Reynolds said: "I have apologised publicly on a number of occasions."

Ms Reynolds was the subject of heavy scrutiny after it was revealed she held a meeting with Ms Higgins, in the room where it was alleged the former staffer had been raped.

Leaks from the Minister's office claimed she used the phrase "lying cow".

Minister Reynolds was forced withdraw that comment.

"I am sorry for what I said, I shouldn't have said it, I've also financially settled with Brittany I wish her well," Ms Reynolds said.

READ MORE: Brittany Higgins says 'onus is on government' to end 'culture of silence'

At the height of the scrutiny, Ms Reynolds broke down in the Senate, then spent a brief period in hospital, suffering a recurrence of a pre-existing heart condition.

"One of the things I've rediscovered in this job, even when we become politicians we're not immune to human illnesses, and conditions," Ms Reynolds said.

"It was a very salutary reminder to me that in my case, my heart health is important.

"It was just a difficult time for many of us, I am fighting fit, I've had great medical support, great support from my boss the Prime Minister," she said.

Ms Reynolds now has charge of the National Disability Insurance scheme, which received a $13 billion boost over three years in the budget.

The Minister told 9News the laws governing the scheme "need changing to make it fairer".

She also said the National Disability Insurance Agency was working to find "efficiencies" as the cost of the scheme spiralled.

"I've got to make sure we put the whole scheme on a sustainable growth trajectory," she said.

Ms Reynolds stood by a controversial proposal, slammed by disability advocates, that would have a government-appointed assessor determine an individual's condition, instead of relying solely on general practitioners.

"We need consistency in terms of diagnosis," Ms Reynolds said.

Israel is reportedly massing ground forces along the Gaza border as deadly violence continues to escalate in the region.

Since the conflict flared up on Monday, Israel's bombing of Gaza has killed 67 people, including 17 children, according to Palestinian authorities.

Israel's death toll stands at an estimated seven, according to the country's military.

READ MORE: Israel steps up Gaza offensive, kills senior Hamas figures

Hundreds have been injured on each side.

Now, Israel's military is preparing for ground operations, international news outlet Reuters has said.

A military spokesman said the Israeli forces were preparing for "various contingencies".

Israel deployed ground troops into the Gaza Strip in the 2014 war, which this conflict is already threatening to eclipse.

Civic unrest has also erupted in a number of Israeli cities between Arab and Jewish citizens.

In Acre, a lynching attempt by an Arab mob left a Jewish man critically wounded, according to Israeli media reports.

In Bat Yam, graphic video showed a Jewish right-wing mob trying to lynch an Arab driver. He was wounded and taken to hospital, according to Israeli media reports.

"We are very, very worried about this deterioration," Israeli lawmaker Aida Touma-Suleiman in Acre told CNN's Hala Gorani in a live interview on late Wednesday evening (local time).

READ MORE: UN warns Israel-Palestine conflict could turn into 'full-scale war'

"I am locked in my house, it's happening in front of my house, and there is no way to go out. The tear gas is filling the houses, and the situation is insecure. There has been attacks on Arab citizens in different cities today.

"I'm really, really worried about this city (Acre). The same is happening in Haifa. The same is happening in Lod. There are different attacks on different citizens."

The Israeli-Arab lawmaker went on to say: "I'm not sure that the police (are) able or even willing to control the situation."

Fuelled by controversy over planned evictions of Palestinian families in Jerusalem, and restrictions at a popular East Jerusalem meeting point as Ramadan began, conflict between Israelis and Palestinians boiled over this week, escalating rapidly into one of the worst rounds of violence between the two sides in the last several years.

"We're escalating towards a full-scale war. Leaders on all sides have to take the responsibility of de-escalation," UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Tor Wennesland said.

Militants in Gaza have fired more than 1000 rockets into Israel since the latest flareup began Monday afternoon, and Israel has launched devastating airstrikes in Gaza.

Fury over the situation has fuelled fierce protests in the central Israeli city of Lod, where Israeli police reported on Wednesday (local time) that people were throwing rocks at passing cars and blocking roads into the early hours.

The mayor of Lod, Yair Revivo, said decades of coexistence had been "trampled."

He said Arab-Israeli rioters had been "burning synagogues, Talmud Torah, dozens of vehicles, burning garbage containers, destroying Israeli flags and worse, lowering the Israeli flag and hoisting the Palestinian flag, on a night of riots that injured policemen and residents who found themselves besieged."

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

Meanwhile an Arab-Israeli resident of Lod, Wael Essawi, told CNN that a mosque was stormed by Israeli police and Jewish residents during prayers on Tuesday night before tear gas was fired and cars were set ablaze.

"We couldn't do anything but we opened the windows so we can breathe … it was very intense," Essawi said.

Another resident, Khaled Zabarqah, said that following a Palestinian demonstration on Monday against Israeli policies in Jerusalem, thousands were hit with tear gas, stun grenades and rubber bullets before Israelis started throwing stones and beating the group.

"My 15-year-old daughter was woken up by the sound of stones being thrown at her bedroom window, I was then woken up by her terrified screams," Zabarqah said.

"There was nothing we could do but protect and defend ourselves with any tools we have, it's either we defend ourselves or we get killed."

On Tuesday, a 25-year-old Arab-Israeli man was shot and killed in the city by a 34-year-old Jewish man, who fired on protesters after they targeted him with rocks, according to police.

Police arrested two suspects in connection with another shooting also in Lod.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today slammed the violence in Israeli cities as "unacceptable" and said he had ordered the police to adopt emergency powers, to reinforce with Border Police units, and to impose curfews where necessary.

"Nothing justifies the lynching of Jews by Arabs and nothing justifies the lynching of Arabs by Jews," he said in a statement.

"To the citizens of Israel I say that I do not care if your blood is boiling. You cannot take the law into your own hands. You cannot grab an ordinary Arab citizen and try to lynch him – just as we cannot watch Arab citizens do this to Jewish citizens."

Israel's Arab minority makes up about 20 percent of the population and are the descendants of Palestinians who stayed in the country after the 1948 war surrounding Israel's creation, when an estimated 700,000 fled or were driven from their homes. They have citizenship, including the right to vote, but face widespread discrimination.

Arab citizens speak Hebrew and are well-represented in Israel's medical profession and universities, but they largely identify with the Palestinian cause, leading many Israelis to view them with suspicion.

Fathers shelter newborns amid rocket strikes

Israeli officials have shared a harrowing photo showing the human impact of the recent outbreak of violence in the Middle East.

In the image posted to the Israel Defence Force's (IDF) Instagram page, fathers are seen cradling their newborns in the hallway of a Tel Aviv maternity ward.

Authorities advised new parents to take the children out of their cribs and guard them in the fortified halls while rockets rained down from above.

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The IDF claimed the babies are the "innocent victims of terror" as they are born to the sounds of air raid sirens echoing throughout the country.

"During a barrage of rockets from Gaza into central Israel, children were born to the warning sound of sirens," the post read.

"The infants in the maternity ward were taken from their cribs and held in a fortified hallway while rockets rained over the hospital.

"These are the innocent victims of terror."

Thousands of Israeli's spent the night in bomb shelters and health officials are concerned for those in hospital departments like the maternity wards who don't have that level of protection.

Gaza has no air defence system and few bomb shelters to offer the Palestinian people protection.

Palestinian health ministry spokesman, Ashraf al-Qidra said the people of Gaza were in a "state of panic" due to the ongoing Israeli bombardment.

He said Israel had deliberately targeted civilian homes and crowded residential neighbourhoods, adding that 43 per cent of the victims of strikes in Gaza were children and women.

– With CNN, Associated Press

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Two climbers have reportedly died on Mount Everest in the first fatalities of the season.

The Himalayan Times reported Switzerland man Abdul Waraich and USA man Puwei Liu had both died on Wednesday night local time.

Mr Waraich had climbed to the top of the peak, but died after collapsing on the South Summit during the descent.

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Mr Liu reached the Hillary Step before turning back, but died before returning to the base of the mountain.

Sherpas had been sent to help both men with extra oxygen and supplies, but to no avail.

The men's bodies will be recovered when weather permits.

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A huge chalk figure cut into the side of a hill in southern England is younger than previously thought.

Scientific analysis of sand particles taken from the 60m-tall Cerne Giant show that it was probably made between 700 and 1100 AD, conservation body the National Trust said in a press release published on Tuesday.

"This is not what was expected. Many archaeologists and historians thought he was prehistoric or post-medieval, but not medieval," Mike Allen, an independent geoarchaeologist who was part of the project, said.

READ MORE: Ancient penis carving incredibly important, say archaeologists

"Everyone was wrong, and that makes these results even more exciting," he said.

Scientists used optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) to determine when the sand had last been exposed to sunlight, and the results of the sediment analysis showed the figure was probably first cut in the late-Saxon period, the National Trust said.

Nearby Cerne Abbey was founded in 987 AD and some say it was intended to convert local people who worshipped an early Anglo-Saxon god called "Heil" or "Heilith," raising the possibility that the giant originally depicted this god.

"He could have had a pagan symbolism," National Trust senior archaeologist Martin Papworth told CNN.

However, the earliest record of the giant dates from 1694, raising questions about why it would have gone unremarked upon for so long, particularly given the presence of the nearby abbey.

"These new dates caught us by surprise," Mr Papworth said.

READ MORE: Noisy hippos led to pharoah's grisly death, say archaeologists

Now Mr Papworth believes the giant was neglected for a long period of time and then rediscovered, which would explain why it is not mentioned in historical documents.

Researchers also used a remote-sensing technique called lidar, or light detection and ranging, which produces detailed models of terrain.

The survey reveals that the line of the giant's belt originally continued straight across, said Mr Papworth, uninterrupted by the large penis visible today.

"We didn't actually do any excavation on his penis," Mr Papworth said, explaining that it's not possible to say when it was added.

Mr Allen said the research showed that Britain's chalk figures could not be lumped together.

"Archaeologists have wanted to pigeonhole chalk hill figures into the same period," he said.

"But carving these figures was not a particular phase — they're all individual figures, with local significance, each telling us something about that place and time."

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