The airstrikes and rocket attacks could drag the volatile area into broader conflict especially if a large number of civilians are killed on either side.

On Saturday, the low whooshing noise of militants firing rockets from border areas toward Israel was palpably heard inside Gaza City. Israeli drones hovered in the skies above. Tens of thousands of Palestinian mourners marched through the streets in funeral processions. They carried slain militants in coffins, their bodies too torn up to be wrapped in cloth, as Muslim tradition dictates. Masked militants sprayed machine gun fire above the mourners' heads in angry grief.