Deadly fighting and bombardment rocked Gaza on Tuesday as international mediators pushed for a new ceasefire and hostage release deal in the Israel-Hamas war.

Heavy Israeli strikes and urban combat across the besieged Gaza Strip killed 128 more people overnight, the health ministry in the Hamas-run Palestinian territory said.

Pro-Tehran fighters were among seven dead in Israeli strikes Monday south of the Syrian capital, a war monitor said, with Iranian media reporting the attack targeted an "Iranian advisory centre".

"Israeli strikes targeted a base belonging to Hezbollah and Iran's Revolutionary Guards, killing seven people" including pro-Iran fighters, said Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, raising an earlier toll of six.

Israel's president has accused the U.N. world court of misrepresenting his words in a ruling that ordered Israel to take steps to protect Palestinians and prevent a genocide in the Gaza Strip.

The court's ruling on Friday cited a series of statements made by Israeli leaders as evidence of incitement and dehumanizing language against Palestinians. They included comments by President Isaac Herzog made just days after the Oct. 7 Hamas cross-border attack that triggered Israel's war against the Islamic militant group.

Yemen's Houthi rebels said they attacked a U.S. Navy mobile base at sea Monday without offering evidence, something immediately rejected by an American defense official.

The claimed attack targeted the USS Lewis B. Puller, a ship that serves as a floating landing base. The Puller had been earlier stationed in the Arabian Sea as part of American efforts to curtail Houthi attacks on commercial shipping through the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.

Israel's allegations that 12 employees of a United Nations agency were involved in Hamas' Oct. 7 attack have led several Western countries to cut off funding and reignited debate over Gaza's biggest humanitarian aid provider.

The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, employs thousands of staffers and provides vital aid and services to millions of people across the Middle East. In Gaza, it has been the main supplier of food, water and shelter to civilians during the Israel-Hamas war.

Iran executed on Monday four men convicted of planning sabotage and alleged links with Israel's Mossad secret service, state media reported.

The official IRNA news agency said the men were convicted of planning to target a factory in 2022 belonging to Iran's defense ministry and involved in missile and defense equipment in the central city of Isfahan. The operation was allegedly engineered by Mossad and the four were trained by the Israeli agency in an African country before entering Iran, it said.

Israel said "significant gaps" remain after cease-fire talks Sunday with the United States, Qatar and Egypt but called them constructive and said they would continue in the week ahead, a tentative sign of progress on a potential agreement that could see Israel pause military operations against Hamas in exchange for the release of remaining hostages.

The U.S. announced its first military deaths in the region since the war began and blamed Iran-backed militants for the drone strike in Jordan that killed three American service members amid concerns about a wider conflict.

President Joe Biden has said that the U.S. "shall respond" after three American troops were killed and dozens more were injured in an overnight drone strike in northeast Jordan near the Syrian border. Biden blamed Iran-backed militias for the first U.S. fatalities after months of strikes by such groups against American forces across the Middle East since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

Biden, who was traveling in South Carolina, asked for a moment of silence during an appearance at a Baptist church's banquet hall.

Three American service members were killed and "many" were wounded in a drone strike in Jordan, President Joe Biden said in a statement Sunday. He attributed the attack to Iran-backed militia groups.

They were the first U.S. fatalities in months of strikes against American forces across the Middle East by Iranian-backed militias amid the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, increasing the risk of escalation. U.S. officials were still working to conclusively identify the precise group responsible for the attack, but have assessed that one of several Iranian-backed groups are responsible.

The United States and Iraq held a first session of formal talks in Baghdad aimed at winding down the mission of a U.S.-led military coalition formed to fight the Islamic State group in Iraq.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said in a statement that he had sponsored "the commencement of the first round of bilateral dialogue between Iraq and the United States of America to end the mission of the Coalition in Iraq."