US President Donald Trump downplayed a growing scandal Tuesday after a journalist was accidentally added to a group chat about air strikes on Yemen, denying any classified information was shared and defending a top aide over the breach.

Trump said he would "look into" the use of the Signal app as he put on a united front at a meeting with US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, who inadvertently included The Atlantic magazine's Jeffrey Goldberg in the conversation of top national security officials.

A Sudanese monitor accused the army Tuesday of carrying out one of the deadliest air strikes in the country's nearly two-year war on a rebel-held town in the western region of Darfur.

The Emergency Lawyers, a group of volunteer legal professionals, said "hundreds of civilians" were killed in an "indiscriminate air strike on Tora market in North Darfur", while two residents who took part in burial operations said they had counted 270 bodies.

AFP could not independently verify a toll or reach local medics due to a telecommunications blackout in Darfur.

Israel's president said on Tuesday he was shocked that the issue of hostages being held by Palestinian militants in Gaza was no longer a top priority in the country, days after criticising the government's war policy.

"I am quite shocked how suddenly the issue of the hostages is no longer at the top of the priority list and at the top of the news," Isaac Herzog said in a video issued by his office, adding it was important to keep working towards "bringing the hostages home, down to the last one".

Israel on Tuesday said it had killed an Al Jazeera employee in the Gaza Strip, accusing the journalist, Hussam Shabat, of being a "sniper terrorist" for Hamas.

The Qatar-based network said Shabat was killed Monday in an Israeli strike on his vehicle in northern Gaza, in an attack that media watchdog Reporters without Borders (RSF) condemned as part of a "massacre of journalists" in the Palestinian territory.

Syria slammed Israeli attacks as a "flagrant violation" of its sovereignty after a deadly bombardment Tuesday in the country's south, where Israel's military said it had responded to incoming fire.

The violence near the UN-patrolled buffer zone on the Golan Heights followed Israeli air strikes in central Syria, the latest in a string of attacks on military sites since Islamist-led forces overthrew longtime president Bashar al-Assad.

Top Trump administration officials texted a group chat including a journalist plans for strikes on Yemen's Huthi rebels, the White House said, an extraordinary security breach that shocked Washington's political elite.

US President Donald Trump announced the strikes on March 15, but The Atlantic magazine's editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg wrote on Monday that he had hours of advance notice via the group chat on Signal, which included Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Vice President JD Vance.

An Israeli air strike killed a journalist working with Al Jazeera on Monday and the military issued fresh calls to evacuate parts of Gaza's north, as Israel pressed its renewed bombardment and ground operations in the Palestinian territory.

Israel resumed intense air strikes across Gaza last Tuesday, followed by ground operations, after talks on extending a ceasefire with the Palestinian militant group Hamas reached an impasse.

On Monday evening, Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee issued "an early warning before a strike" in the northern area of Jabalia.

Sudan's army has recaptured the presidential palace from rival paramilitaries and is pushing ahead to wrest full control of the capital, but analysts warn that the brutal two-year war is far from over.

In the early days of the fighting, the army-aligned government was forced to flee Khartoum, which army forces are now a breath away from regaining -- the result of a counteroffensive launched late last year after a succession of humiliating defeats.

Al Jazeera said on Monday that a journalist working with one of its channels was killed in an Israeli strike on his vehicle in northern Gaza.

"Hussam Shabat, a journalist collaborating with Al Jazeera Mubasher, was martyred in an Israeli strike targeting his car in the northern Gaza Strip," an Al Jazeera alert said, referring to the network's live Arabic channel.

The territory's civil defence agency confirmed his death, as well as that of Muhammad Mansour, an employee of the Islamic Jihad-affiliated Palestine Today TV.

Israel's prime minister, pushing to dismiss internal security chief Ronen Bar, alleged on Monday there had been an attempt to bring down his government after Israeli media reported Bar's agency spent months probing far-right infiltration of the police.

The police are under the supervision of far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir. The minister opposed a ceasefire in Gaza but rejoined the government last week when Israel resumed intensive bombing of the Palestinian territory in its war against Hamas.