GAZA/JERUSALEM Israel's cabinet authorized the mobilization of up to 75,000 reservists late on Friday, preparing the ground for a possible Gaza invasion after Palestinians fired a rocket toward Jerusalem for the first time in decades. 
 
 Tel Aviv, Israel's commercial centre, also came under rocket attack for the second straight day, in defiance of an Israeli air offensive that began on Wednesday with the declared aim of deterring Hamas from launching cross-border attacks that have plagued southern Israel for years. 
 
 Hamas, the Islamist group that runs the Gaza Strip, claimed responsibility for firing at Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Israel said the rocket launched toward Jerusalem landed in the occupied West Bank, and the one fired at Tel Aviv did not hit the city. There were no reports of casualties. 
 
 The siren that sounded in Jerusalem stunned many Israelis. The city, holy to Jews, Muslims and Christians, was last struck by a Palestinian rocket in 1970, and it was not a target when Saddam Hussein's Iraq fired missiles at Israel in the 1991 Gulf War. 
 
 Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a four-hour strategy session with a clutch of senior ministers in Tel Aviv on widening the military campaign, while other cabinet members were polled by telephone on raising the mobilization level. 
 
 Political sources said they decided to more than double the current reserve troop quota set for the Gaza offensive to 75,000. The move did not necessarily mean all would be called into service. 
 
 Hours earlier, Egypt's prime minister, denouncing what he described as Israeli aggression, visited Gaza and said Cairo was prepared to mediate a truce. 
 
 Officials in Gaza said 29 Palestinians - 13 militants and 16 civilians, among them eight children and a pregnant woman - had been killed in the enclave since Israel began its air strikes. Three Israeli civilians were killed by a rocket on Thursday. 
 
 The Israeli military said 97 rockets fired from Gaza hit Israel on Friday and 99 more were intercepted by its Iron Dome anti-missile system. Dozens of Israeli bombing raids rocked the enclave, and one flattened the Gaza Interior Ministry building. 
 
 In a further sign Netanyahu might be clearing the way for a ground operation, Israel's armed forces announced that a highway leading to the territory and two roads bordering the enclave of 1.7 million Palestinians would be off-limits to civilian traffic. 
 
 Tanks and self-propelled guns were seen near the border area on Friday, and the military said it had already called 16,000 reservists to active duty. 
 
 Netanyahu is favorite to win a January national election, but further rocket strikes against Tel Aviv, a free-wheeling city Israelis equate with New York, and Jerusalem, which Israel regards as its capital, could be political poison for the conservative leader. 
 
 "The Israel Defence Forces will continue to hit Hamas hard and are prepared to broaden the action inside Gaza," Netanyahu said before the rocket attacks on the two cities. 
 
 Asked about Israel massing forces for a possible Gaza invasion, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said: "The Israelis should be aware of the grave results of such a raid, and they should bring their body bags." 
 
 SOLIDARITY VISIT 
 
 A solidarity visit to Gaza by Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Kandil, whose Islamist government is allied with Hamas but also party to a 1979 peace treaty with Israel, had appeared to open a tiny window to emergency peace diplomacy. 
 
 Kandil said: "Egypt will spare no effort ... to stop the aggression and to achieve a truce." 
 
 But a three-hour truce that Israel declared for the duration of Kandil's visit never took hold. 
 
 Israel Radio's military affairs correspondent said the army's Homefront Command had told municipal officials to make civil defence preparations for the possibility that fighting could drag on for seven weeks. An Israeli military spokeswoman declined to comment on the report. 
 
 The Gaza conflagration has stoked the flames of a Middle East already ablaze with two years of Arab revolution and a civil war in Syria that threatens to leap across borders. 
 
 It is the biggest test yet for Egypt's new President Mohamed Mursi, a veteran Islamist politician from the Muslim Brotherhood who was elected this year after last year's protests ousted military autocrat Hosni Mubarak. 
 
 Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood are spiritual mentors of Hamas, yet Mursi has also pledged to respect Cairo's 1979 peace treaty with Israel, seen in the West as the cornerstone of regional security. Egypt and Israel both receive billions of dollars in U.S. military aid to underwrite their treaty. 
 
 Mursi has vocally denounced the Israeli military action while promoting Egypt as a mediator, a mission that his prime minister's visit was intended to further. 
 
 A Palestinian official close to Egypt's mediators told Reuters Kandil's visit "was the beginning of a process to explore the possibility of reaching a truce. It is early to speak of any details or of how things will evolve". 
 
 Hamas fighters are no match for the Israeli military. The last Gaza war, involving a three-week long Israeli air blitz and ground invasion over the New Year period of 2008-2009, killed more than 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians. Thirteen Israelis died. 
 
 Tunisia's foreign minister was due to visit Gaza on Saturday "to provide all political support for Gaza" the spokesman for the Tunisian president, Moncef Marzouki, said in a statement. 
 
 The United States asked countries that have contact with Hamas to urge the Islamist movement to stop its rocket attacks. 
 
 Hamas refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist. By contrast, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who rules in the nearby West Bank, does recognize Israel, but peace talks between the two sides have been frozen since 2010. 
 
 Abbas's supporters say they will push ahead with a plan to have Palestine declared an "observer state" rather than a mere "entity" at the United Nations later this month. 
 
 (Additional reporting by Maayan Lubell, Jeffrey Heller and Crispian Balmer in Jerusalem; Writing by Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Giles Elgood and Will Waterman) ||||| Story highlights Hamas' Cabinet headquarters is destroyed, Hamas TV reports 
 
 Israel's Cabinet OKs activating up to 75,000 reservists, a spokesman says 
 
 Israeli strikes have killed 30 in Gaza, a Gaza government website says 
 
 "It seems that it's beyond control," an Israeli Knesset member says 
 
 From Gaza City to Tel Aviv, rockets kept flying, people kept dying and fear and anger on both sides kept growing. 
 
 For all the bloodshed thus far -- including at least 30 killed in Gaza since Wednesday, according to a Palestinian government website, and Israel reporting three deaths in Kiryat Malachi -- there has been little indication the situation will calm any time soon. 
 
 In fact, fears are rising that the opposite will hold true. Israel's Cabinet on Friday approved the activation of up to 75,000 reservists, prime minister's spokesman Mark Regev said. Also, the Israel Defense Forces reported earlier in the day that it is "mobilizing forces" in preparation for a "possible ground invasion of the Gaza Strip." 
 
 The violence "seems that it's beyond control," said Daniel Ben Simon, a Knesset member not aligned with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition. 
 
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 The violence continued Saturday morning, with several loud explosions from apparent Israeli strikes rattling Gaza City. The Cabinet headquarters for Hamas, the same building where Egypt's prime minister met with Hamas' officials the previous day, was among the sites destroyed, according to Hamas TV. 
 
 From northern Gaza, Mohammed Sulaiman said he could hear bombs intermittently falling from Israeli warplanes as well as, from the other side, rockets periodically whistling toward Israel. 
 
 "The situation is totally dangerous here, and it is not safe to be out in the street," Sulaiman said. 
 
 Meanwhile, the Israel Defense Forces , which has accused Hamas of turning Gaza into "a frontal base for Iran," said 97 rockets launched from Gaza had hit Israel since midweek, while another 99 were intercepted by a missile defense system. 
 
 The former category included rockets that landed near Israel's two most populous cities Friday. No damage was reported, but Israelis consider the attacks on its major population centers to be an escalation, said Israel's ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren. 
 
 Two struck an open area south of Jerusalem, with Hamas militants confirming they had fired rockets toward that city. 
 
 Alarms went off, too, in Tel Aviv, prompting people to scurry off beaches and into safe locales, witnesses said. 
 
 From a seaside restaurant, Elian Karen said the rocket went into the ocean about 10 to 15 meters deep, caused water to rise briefly before black smoke began rising from the water. Within 10 minutes, people were back on the beach -- sitting, eating, playing and seemingly determined not to let the conflict disrupt their lives. 
 
 "Everyone is on the beach right now, very normal (and) no stress," Karen said Friday. "We want to have a normal life and enjoy life." 
 
 Rejecting the idea of a temporary cease-fire Israel had requested because of the Egyptian prime minister's Gaza visit, the militant group al-Qassam -- the military arm of Hamas -- reported on its Twitter feed that it had fired a Grad missile Friday on the southern Israeli city of Beer Sheva. 
 
 In Ashkelon, about 17 kilometers (10 miles) north of Gaza, local officials said rocket strikes had increased dramatically in recent days. Such attacks are nothing new for residents accustomed to hunkering down in bunker rooms, but the emptiness of the town's marina and streets suggested the uptick had left people on edge. 
 
 "It is really frightening," Shiraz Wieselhof said. "I cannot sleep at night." 
 
 This violent back-and-forth comes after the Israeli military's start Wednesday of an operation it calls Pillar of Defense, which it launched to target those behind the high number of rockets fired at Israel over the past year. 
 
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 Israeli authorities said the military campaign has hit more than 600 targets for what it calls terror activity and stifled rocket launches out of Gaza, a claim denied by al-Qassam. 
 
 Photos from Friday showed fiery rubble of where Hamas' Interior Ministry building once stood. 
 
 Hamas field commander Ahmad Abu Galala was killed Friday, according to Hamas officials, and Israel's military reported that fellow senior Hamas operative Kahlid Shahyer was also targeted. 
 
 But despite what Oren describes as great pains by Israel not to hurt innocents -- including warning Gaza residents in phone calls and leaflets -- scores of civilian casualties have been reported. 
 
 In Gaza City, for example, a neighbor at al-Shifa Hospital held the body Friday of 4-year-old Mahmoud Sadalah, who his father described as "very sweet" and intelligent. The boy is among eight children killed in the recent violence, medical sources in Gaza said. 
 
 At least 101 children and 96 women have been injured in Israeli strikes, a figure that does not include carnage from new attacks late Friday night, said Dr. Mufeed Mkhallalati, the Palestinian health minister. 
 
 "As a doctor, as a human, I am crying," a doctor at al-Shifa Hospital said. "I can't do anything for him, because I know he's died. ... And you can't imagine if it's your baby, how do you feel he's a terrorist? Why?" 
 
 Egypt vows 'not to leave Gaza alone' 
 
 With its attacks, Israel is denying Palestinians their rights and efforts to establish an independent state, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said Friday. 
 
 "This is an aggression against all Palestinian people," he said. 
 
 He cited the deaths of two babies as a result of Israeli airstrikes. One was the 11-month-old son of a BBC journalist in Gaza, BBC Foreign Editor Jon Williams said. 
 
 Egyptian Prime Minister Hesham Kandil got a firsthand look Friday at destruction while on a tour with Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. 
 
 His rhetoric toward Israel was diplomatic, though his voice was halting as he struggled to get his words out after seeing a dead year-old boy. 
 
 "No one can remain still and watch this tragedy unfold in this fashion," Kandil said. "This is impossible. The whole world must intervene, and Israel must abide by the agreements and stop the aggression." 
 
 The armed conflict is likely to further erode Israel's fragile relationship with Egypt, which recalled its ambassador to Israel on Wednesday in protest over the ongoing strikes. It also delivered a formal protest to the Israeli government. 
 
 "Egypt will not leave Gaza alone, and what is happening there is a blatant aggression against humanity," said Egyptian President Mohammed Morsy. 
 
 His Cabinet chief noted, however, that Egypt's peace treaty with Israel is safe. 
 
 "But respecting a peace treaty does not mean to stay idle or indifferent to what is going on along our borders," said Mohamed Refa'a al-Tahtawi, who promised "medical, logistical and humanitarian" support for Palestinians. ||||| The visit is expected to last about three hours, and an official in Mr. Netanyahu’s office said by telephone that Israel had told Egypt that the cease-fire would hold as long as “there would not be hostile fire from the Gaza Strip into Israel.” 
 
 “Prime Minister Netanyahu is committed to the peace treaty with Egypt,” the official said. “That peace serves the strategic interests of both countries.” There was no suggestion that the Israelis were considering a more permanent cease-fire at this stage. 
 
 Photo 
 
 Tel Aviv was not hit on Thursday. One rocket crashed into the sea off its coast and another apparently fell, the ability of militants 40 miles away to fire those weapons at the city of 400,000 underscored, in the Israeli government’s view, the justification for the intensive aerial assaults on hundreds of suspected rocket storage sites and other targets in Gaza. 
 
 Health officials in Gaza said at least 19 people, including five children and a pregnant teenager, had been killed over two days of nearly nonstop aerial attacks by Israel, and dozens had been wounded. Three Israelis were killed on Thursday in Kiryat Malachi, this small southern Israeli town, when a rocket fired from Gaza struck their apartment house. 
 
 In a sign of solidarity with Hamas as well as a diplomatic move to ease the crisis, President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt ordered his prime minister to lead a delegation to Gaza. In another diplomatic signal, Ban Ki-moon , the United Nations secretary general, also planned to visit Jerusalem , Cairo and Ramallah, the West Bank headquarters of the Palestinian Authority , in coming days. 
 
 In Washington, Obama administration officials said they had asked friendly Arab countries with ties to Hamas, which the United States and Israel regard as a terrorist group, to use their influence to seek a way to defuse the hostilities. At the same time, however, a State Department spokesman, Mark C. Toner, reiterated to reporters the American position that Israel had a right to defend itself from the rocket fire and that the “onus was on Hamas” to stop it. 
 
 The Pentagon said late Thursday that Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta spoke to Mr. Barak this week about Israeli operations in and around Gaza and condemned the violence carried out by Hamas and other groups against Israel. 
 
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 There was no sign that either side was prepared, at least not yet, to restore the uneasy truce that was forged the last time the Israelis invaded Gaza in the winter of 2008-9, a three-week war that left 1,400 Palestinians dead and drew widespread international condemnation. 
 
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 Denunciations of Israel for what critics called a renewal of its aggressive and disproportionate attacks spread quickly on the second day of the aerial assaults. The biggest criticism came from the 120-nation Nonaligned Movement , the largest bloc at the United Nations. In a statement released by Iran , which holds the group’s rotating presidency and is one of Israel’s most ardent foes, the group said: “Israel, the occupying power, is, once more, escalating its military campaign against the Palestinian people, particularly in the Gaza Strip.” The group made no mention of the Palestinian rocket fire aimed at Israel but condemned “this act of aggression by the Israelis and their resort to force against the defenseless people” and demanded “decisive action by the U.N. Security Council .” 
 
 For his part, Mr. Netanyahu accused Hamas of placing thousands of smuggled rockets into civilian areas, including near schools and hospitals, and firing them randomly into Israel without regard to where they landed. “In the past 24 hours Israel has made it clear that it will not tolerate rocket and missile attacks on its civilians,” he said in a statement. “I hope that Hamas and the other terror organizations in Gaza got the message.” 
 
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 The Israel Defense Forces said that within hours of the Tel Aviv air-raid warning, they had attacked 70 underground rocket-launching sites in Gaza and “direct hits were confirmed.” There were also unconfirmed reports that Israeli rockets had struck near Gaza’s Rafah crossing into Egypt, forcing the Egyptians to close it. 
 
 Military officials said Israel’s aerial assaults had hit more than 450 sites in Gaza by early Friday. The officials also said militants in Gaza had fired more than 300 rockets into southern Israel and at least 130 more had been intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome antimissile defense system. 
 
 In Gaza, health officials said, those who died Thursday included a 2-year-old boy who had been struck on Wednesday in the southern town of Khan Yunis, a 10-month-old girl wounded on Wednesday in the Zeitoun area and a child in the northern border town of Beit Hanoun. A 50-year-old man in Beit Lahiyeh, near the northern border, was killed Thursday afternoon when he was buried by sand after a bomb exploded nearby. Others killed Thursday included two brothers in Beit Hanoun, two Hamas members of a rocket-launching squad in Beit Lahiyeh, and three other Hamas fighters killed in a single strike in Khan Yunis. 
 
 Southern Israel had been the target of more than 750 rockets fired from Gaza this year that hit homes and caused injuries. Among the dozens fired on Thursday was one that smashed into a four-story apartment building in Kiryat Malachi, which means City of Angels, and resulted in the first Israeli civilian deaths. 
 
 It was just after 8 a.m. when the sirens blared in Kiryat Malachi, a largely working-class town of 20,000 about 15 miles north of Gaza, which had not suffered a direct hit by rockets from Gaza before. 
 
 One of the top-floor apartments was home to the Scharf family, a couple in their 20s with young children. Neighbors said they had recently come from India , where they were emissaries for the Chabad-Lubavitch organization of Hasidic Jews. At the incoming rocket alert they did not rush for the relative safety of the stairwell as many of the neighbors did, perhaps not knowing the drill. 
 
 In the adjacent apartment, Yitzhak Amsalem, also in his 20s, ignored his mother’s pleas to take shelter. Instead he and Aharon Smadja, a rabbi and a friend, stood by the window, eager to photograph “the fireworks,” neighbors said. 
 
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 When the rocket crashed into the top of building, Mr. Amsalem and Mr. Smadja, and Mira Scharf, the mother, were killed. ||||| Associated Press An Israeli soldier rides on top of an armored personal carrier close to the Israel-Gaza border on Thursday. 
 
 Israel began mobilizing tens of thousands of troops Thursday and extended its aerial and artillery attacks on the Gaza Strip to a third day early Friday, while Palestinian militants mounted their deepest-ever missile strikes into the heart of Israel. 
 
 Israel began mobilizing thousands of troops Thursday, extending its aerial and artillery attacks on the Gaza Strip early Friday, while Palestinian militants mounted their deepest-ever missile strikes into the heart of Israel. Photo: REUTERS. 
 
 Israel hit the Gaza Strip with airstrikes and artillery shells for a second straight day Thursday and Hamas ramped up rocket fire at Israel, as both sides widened hostilities in the conflict's bloodiest escalation in four years. Charles Levinson has the latest from Tel Aviv on The News Hub. 
 
 A video released by the Israeli Defense Force on Wednesday shows an air strike on Hamas in Gaza City that it says killed Ahmed Jabari, the commander of the Hamas military wing in Gaza. Israeli and Hamas officials confirmed Mr. Jabari was killed in the attack by the Israel Air Force. 
 
 After Friday prayers at the Azhar mosque in Cairo, worshipers chanted anti-Israel slogans in response to the clashes between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. Video by WSj's Sam Dagher via #WorldStream. 
 
 The exchanges, which have killed 19 Palestinians and three Israelis, broadened a conflict that had erupted into the open Wednesday. Israel responded to escalating missile strikes from Gaza militants by launching a blitz of airstrikes that day that killed the top military commander of Hamas, the Islamist militant group and political movement that runs Gaza. 
 
 It was unclear whether Thursday's troop movements were designed to intimidate Israel's foes or to lay the groundwork for an invasion. Israel's leaders have said they are ready to launch a ground assault if rocket fire continues. 
 
 Early Friday, Israeli aircraft pummeled rocket launching operations of Gaza militants, the Associated Press reported. 
 
 "The situation has all the elements and dynamics that could lead us down the road to a place we haven't been before," said Steve Cook, a Mideast specialist at the Council on Foreign Relations. "It's a very dangerous situation, and it's difficult to say what the Israelis should do." 
 
 The conflict's course from here on out rests largely with Israel and its neighbor, Egypt—the two nations that form the cornerstone of U.S. policy in the region, but which have seen ties fray in the months since an Islamist government came to power in Egypt. 
 
 Conflict in Gaza Strip, Israel View Slideshow European Pressphoto Agency Smoke rises from a Hamas site after an Israeli air strike in the center of Gaza city on Friday. 
 
 U.S. efforts to calm the situation depend largely on Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, analysts said. Before becoming president earlier this year, he was a top leader in the Muslim Brotherhood, which has close ideological links to Hamas. With his election, he inherited oversight of billions of dollars in annual U.S. military support and a U.S.-brokered Israeli-Egyptian peace deal that has defined regional security for three decades. 
 
 On Thursday, Mr. Morsi ordered Egypt's prime minister to lead a delegation into Gaza on Friday, Egyptian state television reported. The visit would pose an unprecedented challenge to Israel, perhaps forcing it to scale back its military operations while the delegation is there. Mr. Morsi's activist response to Israeli-Palestinian violence marks a stark reversal from the more hands-off policies of his predecessor, Hosni Mubarak. 
 
 President Barack Obama and administration officials have been in contact with leaders of Israel and Egypt—staunchly supporting Israel's operation while pressing the Egyptians to rein in Hamas, officials said. 
 
 Enlarge Image Close Associated Press A rocket is launched Thursday by militants in the northern Gaza Strip. 
 
 "I'm not going to speculate on where this might go, beyond saying that we all want to see a de-escalation of the violence and that the onus rests squarely on Hamas," said State Department spokesman Mark Toner. "It needs to stop its rocket attacks." 
 
 On Thursday, a Palestinian rocket narrowly missed Tel Aviv, setting off incoming-missile warning sirens in the city for the first time since Iraqi Scud missiles hit Israel during the 1991 Gulf War. 
 
 Thursday's three Israeli fatalities came when a Palestinian rocket struck an apartment complex in the southern Israeli town of Kiryat Malachi, marking the first deaths on the Israeli side in the conflict and the deadliest single rocket strike ever on Israel from Gaza. Three soldiers were wounded in Israel by a rocket strike later Thursday. 
 
 In addition to the 19 Palestinians killed in two days of Israeli attacks, 200 were wounded, Gaza health officials said. Those numbers seemed likely to rise as Israel resumed heavy aerial bombardments late Thursday. 
 
 In much of southern Israel and in Gaza, schools remained closed and most residents hunkered down indoors, sheltering from airstrikes and rockets. 
 
 Shortly after nightfall, Israel's military began mobilizing 30,000 reserves. Convoys of buses packed with infantrymen, and flatbeds hauling tanks and armored vehicles, rumbled down Israel's highways toward the Gaza Strip. 
 
 Enlarge Image Close Jim Hollander/European Pressphoto Agency People huddle for safety in southern Israel after sirens warn of a rocket attack from militants in Gaza. 
 
 "We are in the process of expanding the campaign," Israel's top military spokesman, Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, told Israel's Channel 2 television. 
 
 Earlier Thursday, Gen. Mordechai said military commanders had approved dozens of new targets in Gaza. Leaflets fluttered from the skies over Gaza around midday, warning residents to stay clear of Hamas personnel and installations ahead of continuing Israeli attacks. Army tanks fired shells at targets inside the coastal territory. 
 
 For many Palestinians, a more supportive government in Egypt would be their first sense of change from an Arab Spring that until now has largely passed them by. Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the two retain close ties. 
 
 "This time we know that this is a new Egypt—a new Arab world," said Haidar Eid, an associate professor of political science at Al Aqsa University in the Gaza Strip. "We are expecting the Arab World to do something." 
 
 Many Israelis and Palestinians argue that it was the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt that helped emboldened Palestinian factions, including some elements of Hamas, to take a more defiant and confrontational approach to Israel that helped trigger this current flare-up. 
 
 After nearly four years of calm along the Gaza border, Palestinian militants have slowly stepped up their mortar and rocket attacks on Israel in recent months. Hamas, which in recent years had acted to prevent rival militants from firing at Israel, began to join in the firing itself, in what some observers believed was a response to rival factions' mounting criticism of the group for refusing to confront Israel. 
 
 Enlarge Image Close Associated Press In Ashdod, Israel's Iron Dome defense system deploys against an incoming missile. 
 
 The days leading up to the Israeli attack saw a series of tit-for-tat skirmishes between Israel and Palestinian militants. 
 
 Israel has now struck more than 250 targets in the Gaza Strip, the military said. Gaza-based militants have fired around 300 rockets at Israel since the conflict began, Israel's military says. The country's newly deployed Iron Dome missile defense system, which is partially U.S.-funded, has knocked 105 of them out of the sky, the military said. 
 
 In other recent conflicts—Israel's 2006 Lebanon War, and 2009's operation against Hamas in Gaza—Israel intensely shelled suspected militant positions to soften resistance ahead of ground invasions. Israel's latest shelling has been more limited. 
 
 Both previous operations were followed by several years of calm. Both also were far bigger in scope, taking a massive toll on the civilian populations, killing hundreds of civilians and scorching Israel's image internationally. 
 
 The relatively lower casualty numbers in this assault would seem to indicate that Israel, for its hawkish talk, is mounting a significantly more restrained and pinpoint approach so far to operations than it has at times in the past. 
 
 That may help explain why international support for the Israeli offensive has remained strong. The U.K. on Thursday issued a statements of support for Israel. That followed similarly robust backing from Washington a day earlier. 
 
 "Hamas bears principal responsibility for the current crisis," British Foreign Secretary William Hague said. 
 
 —Joshua Mitnick in Kiryat Malachi, Israel, contributed to this article. 
 
 Write to Charles Levinson at charles.levinson@wsj.com 
 
 A version of this article appeared November 16, 2012, on page A1 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: No Headline Available.
– A brief, planned ceasefire failed to materialize in Gaza today, as death continued to rain down on the strip. Israel had offered to hold its offensive to accommodate a visit from Egyptian Prime Minister Hesham Kandil, provided Hamas held its fire as well. But Hamas said it would keep firing, and one Israeli defense minister complained that 50 rockets had flown in from Gaza during Kandil's visit, CNN reports. A Hamas-run TV station reported that Israel had kept firing as well, but Israel says it took a break for at least two hours. In Palestine the death toll has risen to 21, including 13 civilians, Reuters reports. Among those civilians were seven children and a pregnant teenager. Israel's death toll held steady at 3, despite the hundreds of rockets fired into Israel. But Hamas did up the ante by firing rockets near Tel Aviv for the first time. Air-raid sirens sounded (the last time they did so was during the Gulf War) and civilians ran for cover, though the missiles exploded harmlessly, with one going into the sea. "There will be a price for that escalation," Ehud Barak vowed, according to the New York Times. Israel has now hit 250 Gaza targets, while taking further steps toward a ground invasion, calling up 16,000 reservists, the Wall Street Journal reports. It's also steadily sending troops and armored vehicles to the border, notes CNN—between 1,500 and 2,000 are already there, one official said. Israel claims the attacks have weakened Hamas' military capabilities and caused its attacks to lighten, but Hamas denied that, saying it had hit multiple Israeli targets today. Kandil emerged from his meeting with Hamas expressing solidarity, saying the new Egyptian regime would be more active in helping the Palestinians. "The time has changed," he said. "No longer the Israeli occupation will be able to carry out their attacks against the Palestinians without being held responsible. That time is far bygone." For its part, the Obama administration says it's seeking help from Arab countries in calling on Hamas to relent. "The onus rests squarely on Hamas ... to stop its rocket attacks," says a State Department spokesman. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon is planning diplomatic visits to Jerusalem, Ramallah, and Cairo within days.