Israel killed a Hezbollah fighter in a strike on Syria, close to the Lebanese border, also hitting near Damascus Thursday, a war monitor said, hours after similar attacks.

Hezbollah holds sway over Lebanon's eastern border with Syria, as well as some regions on the other side of the border including Qusayr, the target of Thursday's strike.

Russia said Thursday it fought off an attempted landing by Ukrainian special forces on the Tendra Spit sandbar in the Black Sea held by Russian troops, killing "up to 25" Ukrainian personnel.

"Russian forces... destroyed a Ukrainian commando group... trying to land on speedboats," the defence ministry said in its daily update.

Israel hit a car used by Hezbollah in Syria, close to the Lebanese border, also striking near Damascus Thursday, a war monitor said, hours after similar attacks near the Syrian capital.

"An Israeli drone targeted a car belonging to Hezbollah in the Homs countryside near the Syrian-Lebanese border," said Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

President Vladimir Putin on Thursday hailed Russian national unity, even as fighting raged on in Ukraine, in a state-of-the-nation address ahead of next month's election he's all but certain to win.

Speaking to an audience of lawmakers and top officials televised live nationwide, Putin said that Russia was "defending its sovereignty and security and protecting our compatriots" in Ukraine.

Israeli forces in war-torn Gaza opened fire on a crowd of Palestinians at an aid distribution point Thursday, killing at least 104 people and wounding over 700 according to Palestinian health officials.

Israeli sources confirmed that troops shot at the crowd, believing they "posed a threat," in the pre-dawn incident in Gaza City in the north of the besieged territory.

Israel has carried out strikes near Damascus, Syria's defense ministry said, the latest reported attack amid soaring regional tensions since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

"The Israeli enemy launched air strikes from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan, targeting a number of sites in the Damascus countryside," the ministry said in a statement Wednesday.

Israeli strikes killed two elderly people in Lebanon's south on Wednesday evening, while Hamas earlier fired a volley of rockets towards northern Israel from Lebanon amid escalating cross-border clashes in recent days.

Hezbollah, a Hamas ally, has exchanged near-daily fire with the Israeli army since war erupted between Israel and the Gaza-based Palestinian militant group in October, while Palestinian groups in Lebanon have also occasionally claimed attacks.

More than 120 individuals and groups on Wednesday called for a United Nations probe into Israeli attacks on journalists in south Lebanon, where three were killed last year.

An appeal addressed to U.N. rights chief Volker Turk expressed concern over "the Israeli forces' apparent deliberate targeting of journalists and media workers in Lebanon."

A coalition of civil society groups on Wednesday accused the Emirati hosts of a World Trade Organization meeting of "heavy-handed restrictions", saying some of its members have been detained at the talks.

Our World Is Not for Sale (OWINFS), representing more than a dozen civil society groups, said it has complained to the WTO following a series of incidents at the body's 13th ministerial conference in the United Arab Emirates capital Abu Dhabi.

The Gaza war's reported Palestinian death toll neared 30,000 Wednesday as fighting raged in the Hamas-run territory despite mediators insisting a truce with Israel could be just days away.

Another 91 people were killed in overnight Israeli bombardment, the health ministry said.