Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that the military was "dissecting" the Gaza Strip and seizing territory to pressure Hamas into freeing hostages still held in the enclave.

It came as rescuers said 34 people were killed in continued Israeli strikes on the territory, including on a UN building.

The military is "dissecting the (Gaza) Strip and increasing the pressure step by step so that (Hamas) will return our hostages", Netanyahu said in a statement, adding that Israel "is seizing territory, striking terrorists, and destroying infrastructure".

Wearing a helmet and strapped securely into his four-wheel-drive, Abdelilah al-Rabea tore off across the Saudi desert, kicking up clouds of sand as a crowd of hundreds cheered him on.

Every year through the end of April, droves of people flock to Zulfi, more than 200 kilometres northwest of Riyadh, where adrenaline-seeking motorists drive superpowered cars across steep dunes.

Dune bashing, or tatees in Arabic, is an adventure sport that involves driving off-road across challenging desert landscapes, and has long been a popular pastime in the oil-rich kingdom.

The United States is increasing the number of aircraft carriers deployed in the Middle East to two, keeping one that is already there and sending another from the Indo-Pacific, the Pentagon said Tuesday.

The announcement comes as US forces hammer Yemen's Huthi rebels with near-daily air strikes in a campaign aimed at ending the threat they pose to civilian shipping and military vessels in the region.

Two Iranian businessmen have been indicted for allegedly conspiring to procure US parts to build military attack drones, the Justice Department said Tuesday.

Hossein Akbari, 63, and Reza Amidi, 62, are charged with money laundering and providing material support to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which the United States has designated as a foreign terrorist organization.

According to court documents, Akbari is chief executive of a company called Rah Roshd while Amidi is the commercial manager.

Donald Trump's nominee to be ambassador to London said Tuesday he would ask Britain to reverse a partial suspension of arms exports to Israel, a decision taken over rights concerns.

Warren Stephens, an Arkansas-based investment banker and political donor to Trump named for the coveted diplomatic posting, said he was "a little perplexed" by the decision of Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said Tuesday he had reversed a decision to appoint a former navy commander as security agency chief following criticism, including from a key US senator.

Netanyahu had announced on Monday his pick of Eli Sharvit to lead the Shin Bet internal security agency, pushing back against a supreme court decision to freeze his government's move to dismiss incumbent director Ronen Bar.

An Israeli strike on Beirut on Tuesday killed a Hezbollah official handling Palestinian affairs, in the second such raid within days on the Lebanese militant group's stronghold despite a four-month ceasefire.

Lebanon's leaders condemned the attack, which came without warning at around 3:30 am (0030 GMT) during the Eid al-Fitr holiday marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

The US government will review $9 billion of funding for Harvard University over alleged anti-Semitism on campus, authorities said Monday, after it cut millions from Columbia University, which has also seen fierce pro-Palestinian student protests.

President Donald Trump has aggressively targeted prestigious universities that saw bitter protests sparked by Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza, stripping their federal funds and directing immigration officers to deport foreign student demonstrators, including those with green cards.

Eid al-Fitr in Syria was charged with newfound joy this year, as thousands freely celebrated the holiday for the first time after the fall of Bashar al-Assad.

From the early morning hours, crowds of men, women and children flocked to pray at Damascus's historic Umayyad Mosque in the Old City.

"This is the first time we truly feel the joy of Eid, after getting rid of Assad's tyrannical regime," Fatima Othman told AFP.

In the war-devastated southern Lebanese village of Aitaroun on Monday, residents marked the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr among their dead.

Relatives crowded the village's cemeteries to pray for the more than 100 residents, including fighters from Hezbollah, killed during the war between the militant group and Israel that ended with a fragile ceasefire in November.

"We defied the entire world by being here in Aitaroun to celebrate Eid with our martyrs," Siham Ftouni said near the grave of her son, a rescuer with an Islamic health organisation affiliated with Hezbollah.