US President Joe Biden has downsized the traditional Ramadan event at the White House amid tensions over his support for Israel's offensive in Gaza, officials said Tuesday.

Muslim leaders will meet Biden "to discuss issues of importance to the community", but asked for there to be no fast-breaking dinner, known as iftar, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.

Instead, Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will host a small prayer and iftar after the meeting with several senior Muslim administration officials, Jean-Pierre told a daily briefing.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Houdini of Israeli politics and its longest serving prime minister, has been written off many times before.

But with families of the hostages in Gaza and thousands of protesters on the streets this week demanding he resign, and growing anger at his handling of the war in Gaza, many wonder how long the veteran political escapologist can survive.

The usually bullish Netanyahu, 74, appears both physically and politically fragile. The war in Gaza is taking its toll on the man Israelis call Bibi.

The World Bank says the Israel-Hamas war has caused damage of around $18.5 billion to Gaza's critical infrastructure, according to a new report published Tuesday.

This is equivalent to 97 percent of the combined economic output of the West Bank and Gaza in 2022, the World Bank said in its interim damage assessment, which covers the period between the onset of the conflict on October 7 and the end of January.

Stunned residents of Damascus's upscale Mazzeh district watched Tuesday as rescuers combed through the rubble of the Iranian consulate, destroyed in a strike blamed on Israel that has revived memories of the darkest days of Syria's civil war.

The strike on Monday afternoon killed at least 13 people when it hit the consular annex of Iran's embassy, Iranian state media reported.

Two generals and five other personnel from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards were among the dead, the reports said.

World Central Kitchen, which is mourning the deaths of seven employees in Gaza, was founded by Spanish-American celebrity chef Jose Andres, who began cooking for people in crisis zones after the Haiti earthquake of 2010.

The US-registered NGO has been feeding Gazans displaced since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas six months ago.

Last month, it organised the first maritime aid shipment to reach Gaza in nearly two decades, working with the Spanish NGO Open Arms to send 200 tonnes of food to the territory amid UN warnings of an impending famine.

World powers widely condemned an Israeli strike in the Gaza Strip that killed seven charity staff delivering desperately needed aid to the war-torn territory.

World Central Kitchen -- one of two NGOs spearheading efforts to distribute aid brought by boat -- said a "targeted Israeli strike" on Monday killed Australian, British, Palestinian, Polish and US-Canadian staff.

US President Joe Biden said he was "outraged and heartbroken".

A deadly strike blamed on Israel against Iran's diplomatic mission in Damascus could trigger a spillover of the Gaza war across the region, an escalation Tehran had sought to avoid, analysts said.

Monday's strike levelled the consular annex of the Iranian embassy and killed 13 people, including seven members of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Iranian state media reported.

They included two senior commanders of the Guards' Qud Force foreign operations arm, Brigadier Generals Mohammad Reza Zahedi and Mohammad Hadi Haji Rahimi, Iranian officials said.

Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is a former army and military intelligence chief with a fondness for aviator-style sunglasses and mega-projects.

At a grand ceremony on Tuesday in Egypt's New Administrative Capital, which he has built in the desert, the 69-year-old is embarking on a third term at the helm of the Arab world's most populous country.

He came to power more than a decade ago promising prosperity for all, and his face was plastered across vehicles, trinkets and even baked goods in what was dubbed "Sisimania".

In downtown Tunis, dozens of customers stand in a long queue snaking out of a supermarket to buy sugar, essential for the end of Ramadan celebrations eight days away.

The key ingredient for traditional sweets served to mark the end of the Muslim holy month is now being rationed to one to two kilogrammes per customer per week.

"I never thought that one day we would form a queue in Tunisia to buy sugar," said Lamia Bouraoui, 58.

Like other basic foodstuffs in Tunisia, sugar is subsidised by the state.

Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was sworn in Tuesday for his third term as leader of the Arab world's most populous nation.

In power for the past decade, the 69-year-old former army chief is now set to remain the head of state until 2030.

He starts the term flush with tens of billions in new loans and investments to fight a severe economic downturn, and at a time of heightened tensions with wars raging across its borders in both Gaza and Sudan.