US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday "now is the time" to end the Gaza war, and urged Israel to avoid further escalation with Iran.

Israel is fighting Iran-backed Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon and has vowed to retaliate against Iran for an October 1 missile attack.

In southern Lebanon, Israeli strikes pounded Tyre, leaving swathes of its centre in ruins and sparking a new exodus from the once vibrant coastal city.

"The whole city shook," said resident Rana, who fled to the seafront after the Israeli military issued an evacuation warning.

AFP correspondents reported several strikes on Lebanon's Tyre on Wednesday after the Israeli army warned residents to evacuate swathes of the coastal city which boasts a UNESCO world heritage site.

AFPTV footage showed plumes of thick black smoke rising from several neighbourhoods, with parts of the evacuation area just 500 metres (yards) from the city's ancient ruins.

"Four strikes targeted the city of Tyre after the enemy threatened to bomb it," the National News Agency said, after earlier reporting that "an enemy drone targeted" a "street in Tyre".

A general in Iran's Revolutionary Guards has been charged in New York in connection with an alleged plot to assassinate a dissident Iranian-American journalist, US officials said Tuesday.

The target of the alleged assassination plot was not named in unsealed court documents, but she has been widely identified as Masih Alinejad, who lives in New York.

Trapped for days as Israeli forces unleashed a sweeping assault, then rounded up and searched by troops who told them to leave, thousands of war-weary Palestinians have fled north Gaza.

Online videos verified by AFP showed dozens of displaced Gazans funnelling on Monday into a checkpoint manned by soldiers in Jabalia, the focus of the massive Israeli military operation since early October.

Walking past an Israeli tank on a rubble-strewn dirt road, they were checked before being allowed through in a single file.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Tuesday to seize on the killing of Hamas's leader to work towards a Gaza ceasefire.

Blinken also pressed for more aid to be allowed into the Palestinian territory as concerns rise for tens of thousands of civilians trapped by fighting in the hard-to-reach north.

The FBI announced Tuesday it was investigating the alleged leak of classified US intelligence documents about Israel's plans for a retaliatory strike on Iran.

Iran has been bracing for a response since it unleashed a wave of close to 200 ballistic missiles on Israel on October 1 in retaliation for the killings of Tehran-backed senior figures in Hamas and Hezbollah.

The classified documents, circulated on the Telegram app last week by an account called Middle East Spectator, describe Israeli preparations for a possible strike -- but do not identify any actual targets.

The United States has said a UN Security Council resolution that ended Israel's war with Hezbollah in 2006 could form the basis of a new ceasefire, though it would need to be better enforced.

What is resolution 1701, and what problems were there with its enforcement?

- What does the text say? -

UN Security Council Resolution 1701 was voted in unanimously to end the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, which killed around 1,200 people in Lebanon, most of them civilians, and 160 in Israel, most of them soldiers.

More than 100 female professional footballers from 24 countries have called on the sport's governing body FIFA to end its sponsorship deal with Saudi oil giant Aramco, citing human rights issues and treatment of the LGBTQ+ community as well as environmental concerns.

In an open letter to FIFA president Gianni Infantino, the players said the "Aramco sponsorship is a middle finger to women's football".

Israel kept up its bombing of Lebanon Tuesday after a late night strike that killed 18 people near a Beirut hospital, state media reported, as its war on Hezbollah approached the one-month mark.

The latest deaths brought the overall toll in Lebanon since September 23 to at least 1,552, according to an AFP tally of health ministry figures, although the real number is likely to be higher due to data gaps.

Israel's army said it had killed the cleric tipped to succeed slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an air strike on Beirut three weeks ago that targeted commanders of the Iran-backed militant group.

Hezbollah has not issued a statement about the Israeli claims to have killed Hashem Safieddine.