Palestinian militants fired hundreds of rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israel on Wednesday, while Israel pressed ahead with a series of airstrikes that have killed 23 Palestinians, including three senior militants and at least 10 civilians. A state-run Egyptian TV station announced that Egypt, a frequent mediator between the sides, had brokered a cease-fire. But the truce efforts appeared to falter as fighting intensified late Wednesday, with neither side showing any sign of backing down. Early Thursday, the Israeli military said it targeted the commander of Islamic Jihad’s rocket squad in an airstrike on a building in the southern Gaza Strip. The military said Ali Ghali was hiding in an apartment and that two additional militants from the group were killed alongside him in the airstrike at a Qatari-built residential complex in Khan Younis. Ghali instructed and took part in rocket attacks against Israel in recent months. There was no comment from the militant group. In a prime-time TV address, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that Israel had dealt a harsh blow to the militants. But he cautioned: "This round is not over.” “We say to the terrorists and those who send them. We see you everywhere. You can't hide, and we choose the place and time to strike you,” he said, adding that Israel would also decide when calm is restored. Throughout the day, rocket fire set off air-raid sirens throughout southern and central Israel, some 80 kilometers (50 miles) away. Residents had been bracing for an attack since Israel launched its first airstrikes early Tuesday. It was the heaviest fighting between the sides in months, pushing the region closer toward a full-blown war. But in signs that both sides were trying to show restraint, Israel avoided attacks on the ruling Hamas militant group, targeting only the smaller and more militant Islamic Jihad faction. Hamas, meanwhile, appeared to remain on the sidelines. Israel and Hamas have fought four wars since the Islamic militant group took control of Gaza in 2007. Also read: Israeli-Palestinian fighting continues, despite Egyptian cease-fire announcement Late Wednesday, Egypt's Extra News television channel, which has close ties to Egyptian security agencies, said it had brokered a cease-fire. Egyptian intelligence frequently mediates between Israel and Palestinian militants. Israeli officials confirmed that Egypt was trying to facilitate a cease-fire. Speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss behind-the-scenes diplomacy, they said Israel would evaluate the situation based on actions on the ground, not declarations. Islamic Jihad said it would continue firing rockets. Mohamad al-Hindi, an official with the group, said a sticking point in the talks was that the Palestinians wanted an Israeli commitment to stop targeted killing operations, such as the ones that killed three top Islamic Jihad commanders early Tuesday. As rockets streaked through the sky, Israeli TV stations showed air defense systems intercepting rockets above the skies of Tel Aviv. In the nearby suburb of Ramat Gan, people lay face-down on the ground as they took cover. The Israeli military said that for the first time, an air-defense system known as David’s Sling intercepted a rocket. The system, developed with the U.S., is meant to intercept medium-range threats and is part of a multi-layered air defense that also includes the better-known Iron Dome anti-rocket system. Israeli media said a previous attempt to use the system several years ago had failed. In a move that could further raise tensions, Israeli police said they would permit a Jewish ultranationalist parade to take place next week. The parade, meant to celebrate Israel's capture of east Jerusalem and its Jewish holy sites, marches through the heart of the Old City's Muslim Quarter and often leads to friction with local Palestinians.   Israeli officials said over 400 rockets had been fired as of Wednesday evening. Most, they said, were intercepted or fell in open areas, but Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said about one-quarter had been misfired and fallen inside Gaza. Israeli rescuers said three people were hurt running for shelter, and four homes in southern Israel were damaged by rocket strikes. The army said that schools would remain closed and restrictions on large gatherings would remain in place in southern Israel until at least Friday. Residents were instructed to stay near bomb shelters. Eden Avramov, a 26-year-old resident of the southern Israeli town of Sderot, described the 24 hours since Israel launched airstrikes on Gaza as terrifying. “We are all traumatized from this routine — the waiting, the booms, the alarms.” Israeli aircraft hit targets in Gaza for the second straight day, killing at least five Palestinians. The Israeli military said its warplanes targeted dozens of rocket launchers, arms warehouses and other targets across the enclave. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said four of the dead were militants. A 10-year-old Palestinian girl named Layan Mdoukh was killed in a blast at her home in Gaza City in unclear circumstances on Wednesday. The initial Israeli airstrikes on Tuesday that set off the exchange of fire killed three senior Islamic Jihad militants and at least 10 civilians — most of them women and children. The Israeli military has said its attacks were focused on Islamic Jihad militant infrastructure in the coastal enclave. Israel says the airstrikes are a response to a barrage of rocket fire launched last week by Islamic Jihad in response to the death of one of its members from a hunger strike while in Israeli custody. Israel says it is trying to avoid conflict with Hamas, the more powerful militant group that rules Gaza, and limit the fighting to Islamic Jihad. “Our actions are meant to prevent further escalation," said Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military's chief spokesman. "Israel is not interested in war.” In a statement, an umbrella organization of Palestinian factions in Gaza, including Hamas, said the campaign against Israel — which it dubbed “Avenging the Free” — involved firing hundreds of rockets in retaliation for Israel's killing of the three Islamic Jihad commanders as well as several civilians. “The resistance is ready for all options," the factions said. “If (Israel) persists in its aggression and arrogance, dark days await it." Still, it remained unclear whether Hamas had joined the fray. If the ruling militant group enters the fighting, the risk of a full-blown conflict would increase. Israel has come under international criticism for the high civilian toll Tuesday, which included wives of two of the militant commanders, some of their children and a dentist who lived in one of the targeted buildings along with his wife and son. In past conflicts, rights groups have accused Israel of committing war crimes due to high civilian deaths. Israel says it does its utmost to avoid civilian casualties and holds militant groups responsible because they operate in heavily populated residential areas. In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the military said that Palestinian gunmen opened fire at troops in the Palestinian town of Qabatiya in the northern West Bank during an army raid. Troops returned fire, killing the two men, and confiscated their firearms, it said. Islamic Jihad later claimed the two men as its members. Israel has been conducting near-daily military raids in the occupied West Bank for over a year to detain suspected Palestinian militants, including many from Islamic Jihad. At least 107 Palestinians, around half of them militants, have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank and east Jerusalem this year, according to an Associated Press tally. At least 20 people have been killed in Palestinian attacks targeting Israelis. Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek all three territories for a future independent state.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his envoy reached out to Palestinian and regional Arab leaders on Tuesday as attacks between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers raged on, maintaining what the Biden administration is calling its quiet diplomacy while still declining to press for an immediate cease-fire. Blinken, speaking during an unrelated trip focusing on Russia and Nordic countries, also defended the U.S. decision to block what would have been a unanimous U.N. Security Council statement on the fighting and its civilian toll, and the overall U.S. approach to the worst Israeli-Palestinian fighting since 2014. President Joe Biden, speaking to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, expressed general support for a cease fire but stopped short of joining dozens of Democratic lawmakers in demanding one. “Our goal remains to bring the current cycle of violence to an end” and then return to a process in which a lasting peace can be forged, the U.S. diplomat said. Blinken said he had spoken to the foreign ministers of Morocco and Bahrain, two Arab countries that recently have moved to normalize relations with Israel, while US envoy Hady Amr in Israel spoke with Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. The ongoing U.S. outreach — reflecting an administration that has emphasized working with allies, and has refrained from publicly criticizing ally Israel — came as new Hamas rockets and Israeli airstrikes continued for a ninth day. At least 213 Palestinians and 12 people in Israel have died. Efforts by Egypt and others to mediate a truce have stalled. Biden’s carefully worded statement expressing general support for a cease-fire, in a White House readout Monday of his second known call to Netanyahu in three days as the attacks pounded on, came with the administration under pressure to respond more forcefully despite its reluctance to challenge Israel’s actions in its part of the fighting. The administration also has expressed its determination to wrench the main U.S. foreign policy focus away from Middle East hotspots and Afghanistan. Biden’s comments on a cease-fire were open-ended and similar to previous administration statements of support in principle for a cease-fire. Biden also “encouraged Israel to make every effort to ensure the protection of innocent civilians,” the White House said in its readout. An administration official said the decision to express support and not explicitly demand a cease-fire was intentional. While Biden and top aides are concerned about the mounting bloodshed and loss of innocent life, the decision not to demand an immediate halt to hostilities reflects White House determination to support Israel’s right to defend itself from Hamas, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private deliberations. Meanwhile, European Union foreign ministers were meeting Tuesday to discuss how to use the 27-nation bloc’s political clout to help diplomatic efforts to end the fighting between the Israeli armed forces and Palestinian militants. The EU has been united in its calls for a cease-fire and the need for a political solution to end the latest conflict, but the nations are divided over how best to help. Netanyahu told Israeli security officials late Monday that Israel would “continue to strike terror targets” in Gaza “as long as necessary in order to return calm and security to all Israeli citizens.” Separately, the United States, Israel’s top ally, blocked for a third time Monday what would have been a unanimous statement by the 15-nation U.N. Security Council expressing “grave concern” over the intensifying Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the loss of civilian lives. The final U.S. rejection killed the Security Council statement, at least for now. Blinken said the U.S. was “not standing in the way of diplomacy” and that the U.N. statement would not have advanced the goal of ending the violence. “If we thought and if we think that there is something, including at the United Nations that could advance the situation, we would be for it,” Blinken said. White House press secretary Jen Psaki and national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the United States was focusing instead on “quiet, intensive diplomacy.” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Monday joined dozens of Democratic lawmakers — and one Republican and independent Sen. Bernie Sanders — in calling for the cease-fire by both sides. A prominent Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff, the House intelligence committee chairman, pressed the U.S. over the weekend to get more involved. But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., took the Senate floor on Monday to assail lawmakers for including Israel in their demands for a cease-fire. “To say that both sides, both sides need to de-escalate downplays the responsibility terrorists have for initiating the conflict in the first place and suggests Israelis are not entitled to defend themselves against ongoing rocket barrages,” McConnell said. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., led 19 Republican senators releasing a resolution supporting Israel’s side of the fighting. They plan to try to introduce the legislation next week.