Israel pummelled Gaza with airstrikes and Palestinian militants launched rocket barrages at Tel Aviv and other cities yesterday, with no sign yet of an end to the worst escalation in years in the region, almost a week into the conflict.
US and Arab diplomats are seeking to calm the situation.
In violence overnight, militants fired about 200 rockets at cities in Israel, whose planes struck what it said were targets used by Hamas, the Islamist group that runs Gaza.
At least 139 people, including 39 children, have been killed in Gaza since hostilities erupted on Monday, Palestinian medics said.
Israel has reported nine dead, including children.
The Israeli bombardment overnight killed more than 15 Palestinians in Gaza, medics said, including a woman and four of her children who died when their home in a refugee camp was hit.
Five others died, with others wounded, the medics said.
Israel's military said about the incident that it had hit an apartment in the Beach refugee camp used by Hamas. It said details of the case are under review.
In Israel, thousands of Israelis ran for shelter. Sirens wailed repeatedly across Tel Aviv on Saturday. One rocket struck a residential building in the commercial hub's suburb of Ramat Gan, killing one person there, medics said.
In Gaza, Akram Farouq dashed out of his home with his family after a neighbour told him they had received a call from an Israeli officer warning that their building would be hit.
"We haven't slept all night because of the explosions, and now I am out in the street with my wife and children, who are weeping and trembling," he said.
In Israel's coastal city of Ashdod, Mark Reidman surveyed damage to his apartment building from a rocket hit.
"We want to live in peace and quiet," he said, adding he had to try to explain to his three young children "what happened, and why this is happening".
Hamas launched Monday's rocket assault after tensions over a court case to evict several Palestinian families in East Jerusalem and in retaliation for Israeli police clashes with Palestinians near the city's al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam's third-holiest site.
Regional and international diplomatic efforts have yet to show any signs of halting hostilities.
US President Joe Biden's envoy, Hady Amr, deputy assistant secretary for Israel and Palestinian affairs, arrived in Israel on Friday, before a meeting today of the UN Security Council. The US embassy said the envoy aims "to reinforce the need to work towards a sustainable calm".
Egypt is pushing for a ceasefire so talks could start, two Egyptian security sources said on Friday. Cairo has been leaning on Hamas and pressing others, such as the US, to secure an agreement with Israel.
Hostilities between Israel and Gaza have been accompanied by violence in Israel's mixed communities of Jews and Arabs.
Synagogues have been attacked, Arab-owned shops vandalised and street fights have broken out. Israel's president, who has a largely ceremonial role, has warned of civil war.
Palestinian casualties also extend beyond Gaza. Palestinians, who each year on May 15 mark their displacement during the 1948 war around Israel's creation, reported 11 people killed this week in the occupied West Bank after protesters and Israeli forces clashed.
-Reuters
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