An Israeli strike on a school where displaced people were sheltering in the central Gaza Strip killed at least 17 people on Thursday, Palestinian medical officials said.

Another 32 people were wounded in the strike in the Nuseirat refugee camp, according to the Awda Hospital, which received the casualties.

The Israeli military said it had hit a Hamas command and control centre embedded in a compound formerly used as a school in Nuseirat.

In Gaza, where Israel has intensified an assault on the northern edge of the territory since killing the leader of Hamas last week, health authorities and residents reported 42 people killed in fresh Israeli strikes, most in the north.

Among the dead were Mohammed and Bilal Abu Atwi — a driver for UN aid agency UNRWA and his brother — killed in a strike that blasted their UN-marked vehicle in Deir al-Balah.

"Our children have become martyrs as they were serving their community and people," their father Marwan said at the hospital where their bodies were laid out in white plastic bags.

The US has written to Israel, giving it 30 days to boost humanitarian aid access in Gaza, which has seen almost daily bombardments, or risk having some US military assistance cut.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said on Thursday that Israel aims to "empty" the Gaza Strip of Palestinians, especially in the northern part where it launched a sweeping assault this month.

"It has been a full year since the greatest catastrophe that the Palestinian people experienced after the Nakba of 1948, which is the Israeli war in which crimes of genocide and ethnic cleansing are being committed in the Gaza Strip," Mr Abbas said in a speech to members of the BRICS group.

"This is part of a plan to empty the territory of its people, especially now in northern Gaza where the occupation forces are resorting to starving the population there."

One Syrian soldier killed in IDF strike on Damascus, defence ministry says

Israel launched strikes on the Syrian capital Damascus and a military site near the western city of Homs on Thursday, the Syrian defence ministry said, as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken toured the region pushing for a halt to fighting.

The Israeli strikes targeted the central Damascus neighbourhood of Kafr Sousa and a military site in the Homs countryside, killing one soldier and injuring seven other people, the ministry said in a statement.

The ministry said the strikes caused "material damage", but did not elaborate. Earlier in the day, Syrian state media said explosions were heard in Damascus after Israel struck a residential building in Kafr Sousa.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based war monitor, said the strikes targeted "the courtyard of a government building near a military fuel station".

It said "one person whose identity is unknown" was killed and three others wounded.

In Homs province, which borders Lebanon, the Israeli strikes "targeted a truck near a regime forces checkpoint on the road on the outskirts of Qusayr".

That attack killed a soldier and wounded four others, the Observatory said.

Israel typically does not comment on specific reports of strikes in Syria.

Israel has been carrying out strikes against Iranian-linked targets in Syria for years, but it has ramped up raids since last year's October 7 attack on Israel by Palestinian militant group Hamas, which sparked the Gaza war.

IDF strikes continue in Lebanon

On Wednesday, Israeli strikes pounded Beirut's southern suburbs and Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah said it fired precision guided missiles for the first time at Israeli targets.

Three Lebanese soldiers were killed, including an officer, in an Israeli strike during the evacuation of wounded people on the outskirts of the village of Yater in southern Lebanon, the Lebanese army said in a statement on Thursday.

The strikes on the edges of Beirut sent thick columns of flames shooting up into the night sky one after the other, shortly after an Israeli military spokesperson issued evacuation warnings for the neighbourhood.

Another strike came with no warning, hitting the nearby office of pro-Iran broadcaster Al-Mayadeen, the station said. It said the office had been empty since the conflict began. Lebanon's health ministry said one person was killed and five others, including a child, were wounded.

Hezbollah said in a statement late on Wednesday that it had escalated its attacks on Israel, using "precision missiles" for the first time and launched new types of drones on Israeli targets, without offering further details.

The Israeli military said four projectiles were identified as having been fired from Lebanon, two were intercepted and two fell to the ground.

The IDF said on Thursday it hit several Hezbollah weapons production facilities in overnight strikes on southern Beirut.

"Overnight, the IAF (air force) conducted intelligence-based strikes on several weapons storage and manufacturing facilities belonging to the Hezbollah terrorist organisation in the area of Dahiyeh," the military said in a statement.

Lebanese state media reported that six buildings were levelled in at least 17 Israeli strikes during the night.

The conflict appeared to be spreading, with new strikes around midday on Wednesday on Tyre, a UNESCO-listed port city in south Lebanon, which also came after Israeli evacuation orders.

"We are better off dying with dignity than living on the street," said Batoum Zalghout, 25, who fled the latest evacuation zone for another part of the city. She said she had been already displaced with her two children five times.

The Israeli military said it had targeted Hezbollah command and control centres there, including its southern front headquarters. There was no immediate comment from Hezbollah.

Al-Jazeera rejects allegation six reporters hold militant organisation membership

The Israeli military named on Wednesday six Palestinian Al Jazeera reporters in Gaza who it said were also members of Hamas or Islamic Jihad militant groups, an allegation the Qatari network rejected as an attempt to silence journalists.

The Committee to Protect Journalists' Middle East programme said on X that the allegations amounted to smearing Palestinian journalists "with unsubstantiated 'terrorist' labels".

The intensifying exchanges of fire come as Washington makes a final major push for peace between Israel and Iran-backed groups Hezbollah and Hamas before the November 5 US presidential election that could alter US policy.

Mr Blinken, who has travelled to the Middle East regularly during the war, is making his first trip since Israel killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, its most wanted enemy, whose death Washington hopes can provide an impetus for peace.

Washington is also aiming to head off a widening of the conflict in anticipation of Israeli retaliation for an Iranian October 1 missile attack. Mr Blinken said Israel's retaliation should not lead to greater escalation.

Mr Blinken said after talks in Qatar on Thursday he anticipates negotiators will get together in the coming days for discussions on a ceasefire.

Speaking alongside Qatar's prime minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, Mr Blinken said the two discussed options to capitalise on the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and move the abortive negotiations forward.

World leaders raise humanitarian aid for Lebanon

World leaders met in Paris on Thursday to raise €500 million ($811 million) in aid for Lebanon amid the escalating war in the Middle East.

France's Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said the international conference raised a total of $US1 billion ($AU1.5 billion), including $US200 million ($AU300 million) for the Lebanese army.

Lebanon's armed forces have not been involved in the conflict against Israel, which it is fighting with militant group Hezbollah.

Some 70 delegations and 15 international organisations attended the meeting, with Germany pledging a further €96 million ($156 million) in humanitarian and development aid to Lebanon.

"We are making it clear that we not only see the suffering in Lebanon these days, we are taking action; we are supporting the people on the ground who, for the most part, want only one thing: to live in safety and peace in the future, just like so many people in Israel," German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said ahead of the meeting.

French President Emmanuel Macron said France would provide €100 million ($162 million) and insisted a UN Security Council resolution that had failed to keep the peace would need to be fully implemented.

"There needs to be a ceasefire in Lebanon. More damage, more victims, more strikes will not enable the end of terrorism or ensure security for everyone," he said.

Lebanon says it needs $250 million a month to deal with the crisis.

"The storm we are currently witnessing is unlike any other, because it carries the seeds of total destruction, not only for our country, but for all human values as well," Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati told delegates.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that the Middle East was on the brink of a full-scale war as tensions rose sharply between Israel and Iran.

"The fighting that began a year ago in Gaza has now spread to Lebanon," Mr Putin, sitting beside Chinese President Xi Jinping, told a meeting of the BRICS+ group in the city of Kazan on the Volga.

"Other countries in the region were also affected. The degree of confrontation between Israel and Iran has sharply increased. All this resembles a chain reaction and puts the entire Middle East on the brink of a full-scale war."

Arrests made over possible terror attack on Israelis in Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka police arrested three people in connection with warnings of a planned attack on Israelis in the country, a government minister said Thursday.

Authorities on the island stepped up security across the country on Wednesday, including at the popular tourist spot Arugam Bay, following US intelligence that an attack was possible.

Minister of Public Security and Foreign Affairs Vijitha Herath said three Sri Lankans had been taken into custody and are being interrogated.

He provided no further details saying it would hamper the investigation.

Reuters/AP