The United States warned Israel Tuesday that a conflict with Hezbollah could spark a regional war, as UN agencies said 10 children a day are losing one or both legs and half a million Palestinians suffer "catastrophic" hunger in Gaza.

US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin met his Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant at the Pentagon, saying diplomacy is the best option as fears of a major war against Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon have grown after months of cross-border fire.

A collaborative investigation by international media outlets on Tuesday shed light on the circumstances behind more than 100 Palestinian journalists and media workers being killed in the Gaza war, some while wearing a press vest.

A consortium led by investigative outlet Forbidden Stories and involving around 50 journalists from 13 organisations including AFP, The Guardian and the Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism group (ARIJ) took part in the four-month probe.

A collaborative investigation by AFP and international media outlets published Tuesday points to Israeli tank fire likely being the cause of blasts that damaged the global news agency's Gaza bureau on November 2.

A consortium led by investigative outlet Forbidden Stories and involving around 50 journalists from 13 outlets carried out a four-month probe into several strikes involving journalists and media infrastructure since the war in Gaza erupted on October 7.

On a Tel Aviv overpass, former spy Gonen Ben Itzhak addresses a small gathering of flag-waving protesters worried about the future of Israel under longest-serving premier Benjamin Netanyahu.

Motorists honk enthusiastically to the group from the road as they drive past, and a man on a scooter passing underneath shouts "Traitor!"

A former Shin Bet intelligence agent, Ben Itzhak once handled the son of a Hamas co-founder as an informant, to prevent attacks in the occupied West Bank.

Now he protests on the streets against Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition government.

Families of those killed in Hamas's October 7 attack inside Israel sued the United Nations agency supporting Palestinian refugees on Monday, alleging UNRWA facilitated the unprecedented bloodshed, according to court documents.

UNRWA, which coordinates nearly all aid to Gaza, has been in crisis since January, when Israel accused about a dozen of its 13,000 Gaza employees of involvement in the attacks that sparked the war.

French President Emmanuel Macron and King Abdullah II of Jordan Monday called on Israel to lift all land-based "restrictions" on the delivery of aid to war-torn Gaza, the presidency said.

UN agencies have repeatedly warned of severe shortages of vital supplies in Gaza, exacerbated by restrictions on access by land and the closure of the key Rafah crossing with Egypt since Israeli forces seized the Palestinian side in early May.

Rafah city centre in Gaza lies deserted after most residents fled weeks of fighting between the Israeli military and Palestinian armed groups led by Hamas that punctuated daily life there.

Those who are left in the city feel trapped.

Israeli officials have described Rafah as the last Hamas stronghold in the Gaza Strip.

In early May troops entered the city in the south of the Palestinian territory, bombarding areas near the border with Egypt and forcing tens of thousands of residents to leave.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on Israel during a Monday meeting with its defense minister to avoid further escalation in Lebanon as they discussed efforts to reach a deal to free hostages in Gaza.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant was on a visit to Washington seeking to reaffirm the value of ties with Israel's top ally, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly chastised the United States for what he said was a delay in weapons deliveries.

A new discovery of 33 ancient tombs in Egypt's southern city of Aswan could reveal "new information on diseases" prevalent at the time, the tourism and antiquities ministry said Monday.

The tombs date back to the Ancient Egyptian Late Period and the Greco-Roman Periods, which collectively lasted from the seventh century BC until around the fourth century AD.

The burials were found by a joint Egyptian-Italian archaeological mission.

Senior Lebanese officials on Monday defended procedures at Beirut airport during a tour for journalists and diplomats, a day after a British daily alleged Hezbollah was storing weapons at the facility.

The accusations came during escalating exchanges of fire and bellicose rhetoric between Lebanon's Hezbollah movement and Israeli forces, which have engaged in near-daily fire since war in Gaza began.

Hezbollah has been acting in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas since the militant group's October 7 attack on Israel that sparked the Gaza war.