The Israeli army has said it is "prepared for any scenario" after a strike in Beirut that killed Hamas's deputy chief, stoking fears the war in the Gaza Strip could boil over into wider regional conflict.

A high-level security official in Lebanon told AFP that Saleh al-Aruri was killed along with his bodyguards in a strike by Israel, which has vowed to destroy Hamas after the movement's shock October 7 attacks.

A second security official confirmed the information, while Hamas TV also reported Israel had killed Aruri in Lebanon.

The president of Harvard University resigned Tuesday after coming under ferocious attack over plagiarism accusations and her response to anti-Semitism on campus amid the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Claudine Gay was criticized in recent months after reports surfaced alleging that she did not properly cite scholarly sources. The most recent accusations came Tuesday, published anonymously in a conservative online outlet.

An Israeli strike on Tuesday killed Saleh al-Aruri, deputy head of the Hamas movement, in a southern Beirut stronghold of Hamas ally Hezbollah, two security officials told AFP.

Hamas later confirmed Aruri's death, which Lebanese state media said came in an Israeli drone strike that killed a total of six people.

Britain's former prime minister Tony Blair has strongly denied an Israeli media report linking him to talks last week about the resettlement of Palestinians from Gaza in other countries.

Channel 12 claimed on Sunday that Blair, who left office in 2007 and served as a Middle East envoy charged with building up Palestinian institutions, was in Israel last week.

The news channel said he held meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and war cabinet member Benny Gantz about a mediation role after the war with Hamas.

Israel's war against Palestinian militants reached Lebanon on Tuesday, where an Israeli strike killed Hamas's deputy leader, the group and security officials in Lebanon said.

A high-level security official told AFP that Saleh al-Aruri was killed along with his bodyguards in the strike by Israel, which vowed to destroy Hamas after the movement's unprecedented October 7 attacks on Israel.

Turkey announced on Tuesday it had detained 34 people suspected of planning abductions and spying on behalf of Israel's Mossad intelligence service.

The raids came just weeks after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned of "serious consequences" should Israel try to target figures from Palestinian militant group Hamas living or working in Turkey.

Turkey does not view Hamas as a terrorist organisation and has hosted the Islamic group's political leaders for much of the past decade.

Israeli troops killed four Palestinians during a raid in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, sources on both sides said, with the army describing the four as "terrorists".

"Four Palestinians were martyred by occupation bullets in the town of Azzun," the Palestinian health ministry said.

The official Wafa news agency said the men were shot dead when clashes erupted as Israeli troops raided the town.

"Israeli occupation soldiers fired live ammunition, stun grenades and tear gas at residents during the raid," the report said.

Shelling and missile strikes rocked the length of the Gaza Strip overnight into Tuesday, after Israel's army warned its war against the territory's Hamas rulers will last through 2024.

Nearly three months of conflict have claimed almost 22,000 lives in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, and devastated much of the besieged territory.

Despite relentless global demands for a ceasefire, military spokesman Daniel Hagari said Monday the army was preparing for "prolonged fighting" expected to last "throughout this year".

Deep under the Red Sea, a passing Israeli warship could barely be heard as Yamit Avital held her breath and dived, her mind briefly cleared of the trauma of the October 7 Hamas attacks.

"There's a kind of tranquility to the sea, in the deep," Avital said after she emerged from 20 metres (66 feet) under the aquamarine waters of the Gulf of Aqaba, also known in Israel as the Gulf of Eilat.

"It's like you don't hear anything, you only hear the music of the sea."

Syrian dissident Riad Turk, who has been compared to Nelson Mandela for spending years in prison for his staunch opposition to the government, died Monday in exile in France, his daughter said.

"My father died peacefully and satisfied of what he has accomplished, surrounded by his two daughters and his grandchildren," Khuzama Turk told AFP. He was 93.

France's ambassador to Syria Brigitte Curmi wrote on X: "The Syrian Mandela Riad Turk just left us after a whole life of struggle for a free and democratic Syria.