The death toll from the earthquake that has devastated parts of Turkey and Syria exceeded 41,000 on Friday as the United Nations appealed for $1 billion to address a growing humanitarian crisis.

Eleven days after the quake -- now one of the 10 deadliest in the past 100 years -- Turkish rescuers pulled a 17-year-old girl and a woman in her 20s out of the rubble.

"She looked to be in good health. She opened and closed her eyes," coal miner Ali Akdogan said after participating in the rescue of Aleyna Olmez in Kahramanmaras, a city near the quake's epicentre.

The United States on Thursday voiced opposition to a proposed UN Security Council resolution that would demand Israel end settlements in the occupied territories, despite Washington's criticism of its ally on the issue.

Days ahead of a Security Council meeting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a draft resolution seen by AFP would demand that Israel "immediately and completely cease" settlement activities in occupied Palestinian areas.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Thursday thanked his "Arab brothers" for aid supplied following last week's deadly earthquake, that saw countries in the region break with years of diplomatic silence.

The 7.8-magnitude quake hit Turkey and Syria on February 6, leaving a combined death toll of nearly 40,000 people.

Since then, Assad has received calls from the leaders of several Arab countries, including those that cut off ties with Syria over a decade ago over bloodshed during its civil war.

Dozens of arms frantically reach for heaters and blankets handed out by a private donor, illustrating the desperation and rage gripping swathes of Turkey 11 days after its disastrous quake.

Many in the Syrian border region town of Samandag listened to their relatives and friends slowly die under the rubble as they waited for rescuers who came too late.

And those who survived the February 6 disaster have been living on the streets, freezing when the winter temperatures plunge after dark.

When Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan assumed sweeping powers in 2018, he swore the state would deliver more under a centralised system that his critics compare to one-man rule.

Five years on, an agonisingly slow response to a catastrophic quake has undermined that idea, boosting the opposition's case in polls planned for May, experts say.

Erdogan has acknowledged "shortcomings" in the government's handling of Turkey's deadliest disaster of its post-Ottoman history.

Dozens of journalists and rights activists protested in the Tunisian capital on Thursday, accusing the state of "repression" and attempts to intimidate the media.

The protest, organised by the SNJT journalists' union, came three days after police arrested Noureddine Boutar, the director of popular private radio station Mosaique FM.

The station has often been critical of President Kais Saied, who in 2021 sacked the government, froze parliament and seized almost total power in moves rivals have called a coup.

Since the earthquake destroyed her home, Syrian teacher Suzanne Abdallah has lived in a small truck crammed with her family members, just a stone's throw from where their house stood.

"Ten of us pile into this truck. We sleep sitting up," said the 42-year-old, wearing multiple layers of clothes and a wooled scarf wrapped around her head against the biting winter cold.

Her infant boy was sleeping in a makeshift hammock made from a blanket that was swinging from the packed vehicle's roof, as seven other children were sharing a basic breakfast inside.

Dozens of angry demonstrators attacked several banks in Beirut on Thursday after the Lebanese pound hit a record low, AFP journalists said, amid a deepening economic crisis.

Lebanon's cash-strapped banks have imposed strict restrictions on withdrawals, barring depositors from accessing their savings, especially those in US dollars.

The pound is trading at about 80,000 to the greenback on the black market versus 60,000 at the start of the month, according to exchange rate monitors.

Turkish rescuers on Thursday pulled a 17-year-girl and a woman in her 20s from the rubble of last week's devastating earthquake, as hopes fade of finding more survivors.

Aleyna Olmez, 17, was rescued 248 hours after the 7.8-magnitude quake flattened entire cities, killing nearly 40,000 people across southeastern Turkey and parts of Syria.

"She looked to be in good health. She opened and closed her eyes," coal miner Ali Akdogan, who took part in the rescue effort, told AFP in Kahramanmaras, a city near the quake's epicentre.

A Turkish volunteer runs down a pile of rubble, dragging a Syrian man with a bloodied face as anger builds and migrant tensions soar across quake-shattered regions.

"He was stealing!" the volunteer screams, echoing looting charges levelled against migrants across the ruins of Antakya and other cities flattened by last week's quake.

The 7.8-magnitude tremor killed nearly 40,000 people in southeast Turkey and parts of Syria, laying waste to a region filled with families that fled the 12-year Syrian war.