Eight Israeli soldiers were killed in a blast in southern Gaza Saturday, the military said, in one of its heaviest losses of the war, as witnesses reported street battles between troops and Palestinian militants.

The military said the soldiers were killed when the Namer armoured vehicle they were travelling in exploded near Gaza's far-southern city of Rafah, where troops are engaged in fierce street battles.

"There was a very serious damage to the vehicle and those in it, and a large explosion making it difficult to identify and locate the bodies," it said.

Vast crowds of Muslims gathered for hours under the hot sun atop Mount Arafat Saturday for the high point of the annual hajj pilgrimage, offering prayers including for Palestinians in war-ravaged Gaza.

Clad in white, worshippers began arriving at dawn for the most gruelling day of the annual rites, climbing the rocky, 70-metre (230-foot) hill where the Prophet Mohammed is believed to have given his last sermon.

The military strongman in the east of divided Libya, Khalifa Haftar, has named one of his sons as army chief, tightening his family's grip on the oil-rich region.

Saddam Haftar is the third of the field marshal's six sons to assume a key post, and experts see it as a sign the 81-year-old patriarch is preparing for his succession.

They also warn this entrenches the division of the North African country that has been rocked by chaos since the 2011 overthrow of dictator Moamer Kadhafi in a NATO-backed uprising.

More than 1.5 million Muslims will pray on Mount Arafat in soaring temperatures on Saturday, in the high-point and most gruelling day of the annual hajj pilgrimage.

Worshippers from all over the world will climb the rocky, 70-metre (230-feet) hill, about 20 kilometres (12 miles) from Mecca, where the Prophet Mohammed is believed to have given his last sermon.

The desert summer heat is expected to hit 43 degrees Celsius (109.4 degrees Fahrenheit), creating challenges especially among the elderly during a day of prayer and reciting the Koran.

The crew of a ship that was holed in an attack by Yemen's Huthi rebels has been evacuated and the vessel is drifting in the Red Sea, a security agency said on Friday.

The MV Tutor was abandoned after it was struck by a sea drone off rebel-held Hodeida on Wednesday, causing serious flooding, in the latest in a series of Huthi attacks.

The Iran-backed rebels have been harassing the vital sea lane since shortly after the start of the Israel-Hamas war, forcing much marine traffic into lengthy detours.

A top human rights court on Friday held the Argentine state responsible for not preventing, nor properly investigating, an attack on a Jewish center 30 years ago that left 85 people dead.

It also blamed the state for efforts to "cover up and obstruct the investigation," robbing victims and their loved ones of justice.

Months after losing her husband and children in the horrors of the Gaza war, Douaa al-Massarii is doing her best to find peace in the ancient rituals of the hajj.

The 33-year-old Palestinian, who has been living as a refugee in Egypt since February, is happy to now find herself in Mecca, Islam's holiest city, for the sacred rites.

"But my happiness is incomplete without my children, without my husband," she said, choking back tears.

Plumes of smoke were still billowing Friday over a south Lebanon village after a deadly Israeli strike as shopkeepers swept shattered glass and vowed to stay put despite soaring cross-border violence.

Jannata had been largely spared more than eight months of clashes between Hezbollah militants and Israeli forces as war rages in Gaza, but the Lebanese village was shaken by an overnight strike that officials say killed two civilians.

When Andrey Kozlov saw his mother after being rescued from eight months of captivity in Gaza, the Russian-Israeli fell to his knees while she hugged him.

"It was so emotional that we just could not talk", Kozlov's mother, Evguenia, told AFP of the day she was reunited with her son last week, in images broadcast over Israeli TV and social media.

She feared "that Andrey would not be the same again", she said, adding that the meeting "was a storm of energy, an emotional shock wave coming from him".

Israeli strikes hit Gaza on Friday as truce talks with Hamas militants failed to progress and tensions surged on Israel's northern border with Lebanon.

Witnesses reported the strikes in various parts of the Gaza Strip in the morning, particularly the centre.

At Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central city of Deir al-Balah, men gathered over the body of an 11-year-old boy who died during bombardment of nearby Bureij refugee camp.

In a black singlet, the child lay on a floor smeared with fresh blood, a white bandage covering the top half of his face, AFP images showed.