The United States and Britain led international criticism Tuesday of a deadly strike in the Gaza Strip that killed seven charity staff as they unloaded desperately needed aid brought by sea to the war-torn territory.

World Central Kitchen -- one of two NGOs spearheading efforts to deliver aid by boat -- said a "targeted Israeli strike" on Monday killed Australian, British, Palestinian, Polish and U.S.-Canadian staff.

A deadly strike blamed on Israel against Iran's diplomatic mission in Damascus could trigger a spillover of the Gaza war across the region, an escalation Tehran had sought to avoid, analysts said.

Monday's strike levelled the consular annex of the Iranian embassy and killed 13 people, including seven members of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Iranian state media reported.

Top American and Israeli officials have held virtual talks as the U.S. pushed alternatives to the ground assault against Hamas under consideration by Israelis in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, a move the U.S. opposes on humanitarian grounds and that has frayed relations between the two allies.

President Joe Biden and his administration have publicly and privately urged Israel for months to refrain from a large-scale incursion into Rafah without a credible plan to relocate and safeguard noncombatants. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that Israeli forces, which are trying to eradicate Hamas after the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, must be able to enter the city to root out the group's remaining battalions.

Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was sworn in Tuesday in front of parliament for his third term in office.

In power for the past decade, Sisi is set to remain president until 2030, after winning December's election with 89.6 percent of the vote against three relative unknowns.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to shut down Al Jazeera's operations in Israel, calling it a "terror channel" that spreads incitement, after parliament passed a law clearing the way for the closure.

Netanyahu's pledge escalated Israel's long-running feud against Al Jazeera. It also threatened to heighten tensions with Qatar, which owns the channel, at a time when the Doha government is playing a key role in mediation efforts to halt the war in Gaza.

An apparent Israeli airstrike killed six international aid workers with the World Central Kitchen charity and their Palestinian driver, the aid group said Tuesday, as they were delivering food from its latest shipment to Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been pushed to the brink of famine by Israel's offensive against Hamas.

Footage showed the bodies of the dead at a hospital in the central Gaza town of Deir al-Balah. Several of them wore protective gear with the charity's logo. Those killed include three from Britain, one from Australia, one from Poland, and a U.S. and Canadian dual citizen, according to hospital records.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will hold talks with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Tuesday on supporting Ukraine in its war with Russia and the Israel-Hamas conflict.

France is among major military suppliers to Ukraine, which has faced critical shortages of arms and troops as it holds off an onslaught of Russian attacks.

Iran and one of its key proxies vowed Tuesday to respond to a strike widely attributed to Israel that demolished Iran's consulate in the Syrian capital of Damascus and killed seven, including two Iranian generals.

Iran's state TV reported Tuesday that the country's Supreme National Security Council, a key decision-making body, met late Monday and decided on a "required" response to the strike. The report said the meeting was chaired by President Ebrahim Raisi. Raisi said Tehran would not let the "cowardly assassination" go unanswered. "There is no doubt that continuing such terrorist and criminal acts ... will not remain without a response" from Iran, he said.

The United States and Israel were due to hold a virtual meeting Monday on the planned offensive in Gaza's Rafah, an Israeli source said, a week after Israel called off a delegation's visit to Washington.

"The meeting is scheduled for today. It will be online. There may be a meeting in person later this week," said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Israeli forces on Monday pulled out of Gaza's largest hospital complex after an intensive two-week military operation, leaving behind charred buildings and bodies strewn at the sprawling complex.

Israel said it had battled Palestinian militants hiding inside Gaza City's Al-Shifa Hospital, killed at least 200 enemy fighters and recovered large stockpiles of weapons, explosives and cash.