Rescuers raced Tuesday to find survivors in the rubble of thousands of buildings brought down by a 7.8 magnitude earthquake and multiple aftershocks that struck eastern Turkey and neighboring Syria, with the discovery of more bodies raising the death toll to 5,000.

Countries around the world dispatched teams to assist in the rescue efforts, and Turkey's disaster management agency said more than 24,400 emergency personnel were now on the ground. But with such a wide swath of territory hit by Monday's earthquake and nearly 6,000 buildings confirmed to have collapsed in Turkey alone, their efforts were spread thin.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had given the go-ahead to send aid to earthquake-hit Syria, after receiving a request through diplomatic channels as the neighbors have no official relations.

Israel "received a request from a diplomatic source for humanitarian aid to Syria, and I approved it", Netanyahu told lawmakers from his hawkish Likud party, adding the aid would be sent soon.

Tunisia's justice ministry said Monday it had set up a special commission to examine files relating to the investigation and prosecution over the 2013 killings of two prominent left-wing opponents.

The murders of Chokri Belaid and Mohamed Brahmi, coming just two years after the Arab Spring uprisings that began in the North African country, sparked a major political crisis.

At a hospital in northwest Syria, Osama Abdel Hamid was holding back tears as he recalled on Monday the massive earthquake that toppled his home just hours earlier.

"We were fast asleep when we felt a huge earthquake," Abdel Hamid told AFP at Al-Rahma hospital in Idlib province, where he was being treated for a head injury.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his government was preparing to send medical and rescue assistance to Turkey following Monday's earthquake that killed hundreds in the country.

The 7.8 magnitude quake struck near the Turkish city of Gaziantep before dawn, killing more than 900 people in Turkey and more than 380 in neighboring Syria.

At least 473 people were killed in Syria on Monday as buildings collapsed after a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck neighboring Turkey, state media and a medical source said.

AFP correspondents in northern Syria said terrified residents ran out of their homes after the earthquake hit before dawn near the Turkish city of Gaziantep, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the Syrian border.

Israeli forces on Monday killed five alleged Palestinian gunmen in a raid in the occupied West Bank, an Israeli official said, after a days-long search for suspects in a shooting near Jericho.

Hamas Islamists confirmed its fighters were among the dead, saying in a statement the Gaza-based group was mourning members of its military wing killed "in an armed clash with the Zionist occupation".

The most powerful earthquake in nearly a century struck Turkey and Syria early Monday, killing over 1,200 people in their sleep, leveling buildings and causing tremors felt as far away as Iraq.

The 7.8-magnitude quake wiped out entire sections of major Turkish cities in a restless region filled with millions of people who have fled the civil war in Syria and other conflicts.

A former Israeli prime minister who served briefly as a mediator at the start of Russia's war with Ukraine says he drew a promise from the Russian president not to kill his Ukrainian counterpart.

Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett emerged as an unlikely intermediary in the war's first weeks, becoming one of the few Western leaders to meet President Vladimir Putin during the war in a snap trip to Moscow last March.

The Islamist rulers of Gaza, Hamas, have condemned Sudan for agreeing to move ahead with normalising ties with Israel, breaking with decades of support for Palestinian militant groups.