Israel's president on Monday kicked off global commemorations on the first anniversary of Hamas's deadly October 7 attack, with memorials held to honour the victims and the hostages still in captivity in Gaza.

Protests were also held against the wars the unprecedented attack sparked in Gaza and Lebanon.

In Israel, President Isaac Herzog began the day with a moment of silence at 6:29 am -- the time the attack began -- at Kibbutz Reim, the site of the Nova music festival where at least 370 people were killed by heavily armed Hamas fighters on October 7.

Polls closed Sunday night in Tunisia after voting in a presidential election expected to see incumbent Kais Saied secure another five years in office while his main critics -- including one contender -- are behind bars.

Three years after Saied staged a sweeping power grab, rights group fear re-election will only further entrench his rule in the country which became the only democracy to emerge from the Arab Spring uprisings.

With candles, prayers and music, commemorations for the October 7 attack began in Israel's Tel Aviv on Sunday at a ceremony to mark the first anniversary of the Hamas onslaught at the Nova music festival.

Picture of those killed appeared on a screen at the entrance to the ceremony, as hundreds gathered to light candles at a makeshift shrine, leave handwritten notes or simply embrace each other.

"Coming to this event one year after this terrible massacre that happened on October 7, it's very touching, it's very breathtaking," said one of the event's organisers Solly Laniado.

When Ali al-Akbar returned to school in Lebanon this year after the summer holidays, it wasn't to study his favourite subject maths but to seek refuge from Israeli air strikes.

"I miss my friends and teachers," the 14-year-old wearing glasses told AFP inside a classroom-turned-shelter in Beirut's southern suburbs.

Lebanon has postponed the start of the school year after Israel increased its air strikes against the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah since September 23.

Iran's supreme leader has decorated the Revolutionary Guards aerospace commander for the Islamic republic's missile attacks on arch-foe Israel, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's website said on Sunday.

"Ayatollah Khamenei presented the Order of Fath ("Conquest" in Farsi) to General Amirali Hajizadeh, commander of the Guards Aerospace Force," it said.

The decoration was bestowed because of "the brilliant 'Honest Promise' operation", the website said.

Hajizadeh, 62, has headed the Guards aerospace unit since its creation in 2009.

Sipping a coffee in front of a blaring television as black smoke rose from the rubble nearby, Ali Mahmoud, 63, recounted a night of terror in Beirut's southern suburbs.

"We were at the coffee shop when we heard the strikes," he said early on Sunday.

"We whisked our families out of the suburb into the city. We were scared like everybody else."

Mahmoud said he had come back to see what state his home was in, and to collect a few belongings for relatives who were now sleeping in the street.

In a south Lebanon hospital, Norwegian doctor Mads Gilbert peered out of the window after bombardment near the Israeli border, four decades after he first worked in the country.

"It's a horrible experience," he said in a video call from the southern town of Nabatiyeh.

"It's been 42 years and nothing has changed," said Gilbert, who first saw war treating patients during the 1982 Israeli invasion and siege of Beirut.

Below the window paramedics were on standby next to parked ambulances at the hospital behind the front line.

Tunisians cast ballots on Sunday in a presidential election, with incumbent Kais Saied expected to secure another five years in office as his main critics are behind bars.

Three years after Saied staged a sweeping power grab, the election is seen as a closing chapter in Tunisia's experiment with democracy.

The North African country had prided itself for more than a decade for being the birthplace of the Arab Spring uprisings against dictatorship.

Gaza's civil defence agency said on Sunday that Israeli air strikes in Jabaliya killed at least 17 people as Israeli forces said they had surrounded the area to prevent Hamas from regrouping and killed dozens of militants.

Following a year of fighting after Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel, large swathes of Gaza have been reduced to rubble as the Israeli army aimed to completely destroy the militant group.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday vowed to achieve victory and said his country's military "completely transformed reality" in the year since Hamas's October 7 attack, which has left the country fighting two wars.

Netanyahu told troops Israel "will win" as it battles militants in both the Gaza Strip and Lebanon and prepares to strike Iran, almost a year since the unprecedented attack by Palestinian Hamas militants sparked the Gaza war.

Israel's army chief, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi said that, one year on, "we have defeated the military wing of Hamas".