Farmer Nizar al-Awwad has stopped irrigating his land in northeast Syria from a local river polluted by an oil spill that residents and officials in the Kurdish-held area blame on Turkish strikes.

"All the farmers in the area have stopped using the river for irrigation," said Awwad, 30, from a village near Tal Brak, in Hasakeh province.

"We'd be killing our land with our own hands if we used the polluted water," he said.

"Farmers already suffer from a lack of fuel and drought -- the polluted river has only added to our woes," Awwad added, standing near his wheat crops.

US military action has so far failed to halt attacks by Iran-backed groups on Washington's forces in the Middle East and shipping in the Red Sea, with the threats persisting despite recent heavy air strikes.

The attacks by militants -- which the armed groups that claim them say are driven by the Israel-Hamas war -- have been launched from or hit four different countries, posing a multi-front challenge for the United States, which aims to curb the unrest while avoiding direct conflict with Iran.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday dismissed Hamas's demand for a ceasefire and ordered troops to prepare to move on the city of Rafah in Gaza's far south, where more than one million Palestinians have sought refuge.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking in Tel Aviv hours after meeting Netanyahu, said he still saw "space for agreement to be reached" and that he had warned the Israeli leader against actions and talk that "inflame tensions".

Black clouds loom over grapevines in northern Israel on hills that stretch to the Lebanese border, where months of violence have raised fears of a wider war.

The tense border area -- where the Israeli army has traded deadly fire with the Hezbollah militant group for months -- can be seen from atop the Dalton Winery's fermentation vats.

Alex Haruni, the vineyard's owner, worries that if a full-scale war were to break out, it could also ruin the coming vintage.

"That's quite a lot of wine," he said.

Seven civilians were among 11 people killed in Israeli air strikes on the central Syrian city of Homs early Wednesday, a war monitor said.

"Eleven people including seven civilians" and two Hezbollah fighters were killed in "Israeli bombardment" of a building in the Hamra neighbourhood of Homs, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, updating an earlier toll of 10 dead.

Argentina's President Javier Milei delighted his Israeli hosts but upset Hamas on Tuesday by announcing moves to shift his country's embassy to Jerusalem, almost as soon as he touched down.

Milei had barely set foot on the tarmac at Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv when he told Israel's awaiting Foreign Minister Israel Katz: "My plan is to move the embassy to west Jerusalem."

US lawmakers voted Tuesday to reject a standalone Israel aid bill denounced by critics as a "cynical" bid to thwart a cross-party border security and foreign assistance package that would include cash for war-torn Ukraine.

Republicans in the House of Representatives scheduled the vote after the Democratic-led Senate released a bipartisan bill Sunday pairing billions of dollars for Israel and Ukraine with some of the strictest immigration curbs in decades.

Hamas has projected a united front since its October 7 attack sparked war with Israel, but experts say divisions within the Palestinian movement have weighed on efforts towards a ceasefire.

In self-exile in Doha, the head of Hamas's political bureau Ismail Haniyeh is talking openly with Qatari authorities and mediators.

Meanwhile the group's leader in the Gaza Strip, Yahya Sinwar, is in hiding after Israel vowed to pursue the presumed brains behind the October attack to the death.

Rotating cameras planted on a rooftop terrace "follow our every move", said Hebron resident Umm Nasser, protesting intensified Israeli surveillance of her occupied West Bank city since the start of the Gaza war.

"Psychologically, I'm exhausted," admitted the 55-year-old Palestinian woman.

She lives above the Abu al-Rish checkpoint, the site of frequent violence at the heart of historical Hebron.

Saudi Arabia drew 27 million foreign tourists in 2023 and has more than doubled its goal for the end of the decade, an official said on Tuesday.

The announcement came less than five years after the Gulf kingdom fully opened up to tourism and as fears persist that the ongoing Israel-Hamas war could engulf the wider region.

"We have reached 100 million tourists this year, 77 million from home, 27 million from abroad, over 100 million," Tourism Minister Ahmed Al Khateeb said at a conference organised by Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, describing the 2023 figures.