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Israel bombed the home of a Hamas leader in Gaza on Sunday morning and a group of Islamists fired rocket-propelled grenades in Tel Aviv as the violence reached its seventh day with no sign that it would end.
At least four Palestinian people have been killed in Israeli air strikes along coastal areas, health officials said, and many were injured in a night-time bomb blast.
Israelis have been searching for shelters as bomb blasts erupted in Tel Aviv and south of the city of Beersheba. At least 10 people were injured when they fled the shelter, medical officials said.
A total of 149 people have been killed in Gaza since the violence began on Monday, including 41 children, health officials said. Israel has reported 10 deaths, including two children.
Delegates from the United States, the United Nations and Egypt have been working to restore peace but have so far shown no signs of progress. The UN Security Council was due to convene later on Sunday to discuss the worst Israeli and Palestinian violence in recent years.
Both Israel and Hamas have vowed to continue their cross-border fire, a day after Israel destroyed a 12-storey building in Gaza City that housed the US Associated Press and Al Jazeera-based Qatar-based operations.
The Israeli military said the al-Jala building was the official victim, which housed Hamas military headquarters, and had warned residents to evacuate ahead of the incident.
The AP condemned the attack and called on Israel to testify. "We have never shown that Hamas was still in the building or operating in the building," the news agency said in a statement.
In what has been called a retribution to Israel for destroying the al-Jala building, Hamas fired rockets into Tel Aviv and southern Israeli cities early Sunday morning.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday evening that Israel was "in the midst of this process, it is not over and this work will continue for as long as possible."
During the air strike on Sunday morning, Israel was targeting the home of Jehya Al-Sinwar, who since 2017 has been the leader of Hamas in Gaza, the party's TV station said.
Another air strike killed a Gaza neurologist and injured his wife and daughter, Palestinian doctors and relatives said.
AL-AQSA
Hamas launched a rocket attack on Monday after tense weeks over a court case to evict many Palestinian families from East Jerusalem, and to retaliate for clashes between Israeli and Palestinian police near the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third most holy place in Islam during the Islamic month of Ramadan.
Speaking to crowds of protesters in the Qatari capital Doha, Hamas official Ismail Haniyeh said on Saturday evening that the cause of the issue was Jerusalem.
"The Zionists thought that ... they could destroy the Al-Aqsa Islamic church. They thought they could put our people in Sheikh Jarrah," Haniyeh said.
"I say to Netanyahu: don't play with fire," he continued, among the cheerful people. "The title of the war today, the title of the war, and the title of the intifada, are Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Jerusalem," using an Arabic word meaning 'rebellion'.
Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other military groups have operated 2,300 rockets in Gaza since Monday, the Israeli military said on Saturday. It says about 1,000 people were caught by missiles and 380 crossed the Gaza Strip.
Israel has launched more than 1,000 air strikes and weapons strikes along the densely populated coastal border, claiming it has targeted Hamas and other military targets.
War Criminal charges
Earlier this week, International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda told Reuters that the court was "deeply concerned" about the escalation of hostilities, amid ongoing investigations into allegations of war crimes in previous wars.
Netanyahu has accused Hamas of "committing repeated war crimes" by identifying civilians, and using Palestinian citizens as "protection of the people."
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres reminded "all sides that any indiscriminate discrimination in civil society and the media violates international law and should be avoided at all costs," a U.S. spokesman said. Stephane Dujarric in a statement on Saturday.
There has been a flurry of American relations in recent days in an attempt to stem the tide of violence.
President Joe Biden's envoy, Hady Amr, arrived in Israel on Friday to speak. Biden spoke to both Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas later on Saturday, briefing them on US political efforts, the White House said.
But any mediation is a paradox that the United States and most western powers do not speak to Hamas, which they consider to be a terrorist organization. And Abbas, whose power base is in the West Bank, has little control over Hamas in Gaza.
In Israel, the war was accompanied by violence between the Jewish and Arab communities, with attacks on synagogues and the destruction of shops owned by Arabs.
There has also been a spate of deadly conflicts in the West Bank. At least 12 Palestinian people have been killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank that have taken over since Friday, most of them during the conflict.
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