In the Gaza Strip, an Israeli airstrike destroyed a high-rise building that housed The Associated Press' offices.
The airstrike occurred about an hour after the Israeli military ordered the building's occupants to evacuate. The reason for the attack on the building was unknown at the time.
The Associated Press, Al-Jazeera, and a variety of offices and apartments are all located in the same building.
Earlier in the day, an Israeli airstrike on a densely populated refugee camp in Gaza City killed at least ten Palestinians from an extended family, mostly children, in the deadliest single strike of the current war with Hamas rulers in Gaza. As cease-fire efforts gained traction, both sides pushed for an advantage.
The latest round of violence started in Jerusalem and has since spread across the city, with Jewish-Arab clashes and rioting in Israel's mixed cities. In the occupied West Bank, where Israeli forces fired and killed 11 Palestinians, there were also massive Palestinian demonstrations on Friday.
At a time when there have been no peace talks in years, the spiraling violence has increased concerns of a new Palestinian "intifada," or rebellion. Palestinians commemorated the approximate 700,000 people who were expelled from or fled their homes in what is now Israel during the 1948 war surrounding its establishment on Saturday, known as Nakba (Catastrophe) Day. This increased the risk of further unrest.
Hady Amr, a U.S. diplomat, arrived on Friday as part of Washington's attempts to de-escalate the crisis, and the United Nations Security Council is scheduled to meet on Sunday. However, Israel rejected an Egyptian plan for a one-year cease-fire, which Hamas had approved, according to an Egyptian official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the talks.
Hamas has launched hundreds of rockets into Israel since Monday night, while Israel has hammered the Gaza Strip with strikes. At least 139 people were killed in Gaza, including 39 children and 22 women; seven people were killed in Israel, including a 5-year-old boy and a soldier.
A three-story house in Gaza City's Shati refugee camp was hit by an airstrike early Saturday, killing eight children and two women from an extended family.
Mohammed Hadidi told reporters that his wife and five children had gone to visit relatives to celebrate Eid al-Fitr. Three of the children, ages 6 to 14, were killed, and an 11-year-old is still missing. Only Omar, his 5-month-old son, is believed to have survived.
Among the ruins were children's toys and a Monopoly board game, as well as plates of leftover food from the holiday party.
"There was no warning," a neighbor in the same house, Jamal Al-Naji, said. He addressed Israel, saying, "You filmed people eating and then bombed them?" "What is your motivation for questioning us? Go confront the powerful people!"
A request for comment from the Israeli military was not immediately returned. In response to the airstrike, Hamas said it launched a barrage of rockets at southern Israel.
The military told the building owner later on Saturday that it was about to strike the high-rise in Gaza City where The Associated Press and other media outlets, including Al Jazeera, have offices. The building's residents, including AP employees, were evacuated. The army advised the Associated Press that workers should leave immediately.
A fierce Israeli barrage killed a family of six in their home early Friday, sending thousands fleeing to UN-run shelters. According to the military, the operation involved 160 warplanes dropping 80 tons of explosives over the course of 40 minutes, destroying a massive Hamas tunnel network.
A military spokesperson, Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, said the military strives to avoid collateral damage when attacking military targets. However, precautions taken in other attacks, such as firing warning shots to entice civilians to flee, were "impossible this time."
The military believes hundreds of militants were killed inside the tunnels, according to Israeli reports. The militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad have reported 20 deaths, but the military claims the actual number is much higher.
Gaza's infrastructure, which was already in bad shape due to an Israeli-Egyptian blockade imposed after Hamas seized power in 2007, was showing signs of further deterioration, exacerbating residents' suffering. The territory's single power plant is on the verge of running out of fuel.
Gazans are now experiencing frequent power outages of 8-12 hours, according to the United Nations, and at least 230,000 people have insufficient access to drinking water. 2 million Palestinians live in the poor and heavily populated territory, the majority of whom are descendants of refugees from what is now Israel.
The dispute has had a far-reaching effect. Nightly violence has erupted in Israeli cities with mixed Arab and Jewish communities, with crowds from each group battling in the streets and destroying each other's land.
Someone threw a firebomb at an Arab family's home in Tel Aviv's Ajami neighborhood late Friday, injuring two children. According to the Magen David Adom rescue service, a 12-year-old boy was in moderate condition with burns on his upper body and a 10-year-old girl was treated for a head injury.
Hundreds of Palestinians opposed the Gaza campaign and Israeli policies in Jerusalem on the outskirts of Ramallah, Nablus, and other towns and cities in the occupied West Bank. They trucked in tires that they set up in burning barricades and hurled stones at Israeli soldiers while waving Palestinian flags. Soldiers fired and killed at least ten demonstrators. As a Palestinian attempted to stab a soldier at a military post, he was killed.
Young Jewish nationalists in east Jerusalem were seen shooting handguns and throwing stones at Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah, which has become a flashpoint for tensions over settlers' attempts to forcefully expel a number of Palestinian families from their homes.
When a group of Lebanese and Palestinian demonstrators on the other side broke through the border fence and briefly crossed, Israeli troops opened fire. A Lebanese citizen was killed. Three rockets were fired at Israel from Syria, but no one was hurt or property was damaged. It was unclear who shot them at the time.
Palestinian demonstrations against the Sheikh Jarrah evictions and Israeli police steps at Al-Aqsa Mosque, a regular flashpoint in the Old City revered by Muslims and Jews, started earlier this month in east Jerusalem.
Late Monday, Hamas shot rockets at Jerusalem in an apparent effort to portray itself as the protesters' champion.
As Israel has massed troops at the border, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised that Hamas will "pay a very high price" for its rocket attacks. President of the United States, Joe Biden, has voiced his support for Israel while also expressing his expectation that the violence will be brought under control.
According to the Israeli military, Hamas has launched 2,000 rockets at Israel since Monday. Anti-missile defenses have intercepted the majority, but they have brought life to a halt in southern Israeli towns, caused delays at airports, and triggered air raid sirens in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
