Arab leaders decrying the deaths of thousands of Palestinian civilians in the Israel-Hamas war pushed for an immediate cease-fire Saturday even as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that such a move would be counterproductive and could encourage more violence by the militant group.

After an afternoon of talks with Egyptian, Jordanian, Saudi, Qatari and Emirati diplomats and a senior Palestinian official, Blinken stood side by side at a line of podiums with his counterparts from Jordan and Egypt to discuss what he said was their shared desire to protect civilians in Gaza and improve aid flows to the besieged territory.

Thousands of Israelis protested outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s official residence in central Jerusalem, calling on the Israeli leader to resign in the wake of the bloody Oct. 7 Hamas rampage that sparked the latest Israel-Hamas war.

Netanyahu has so far refused to take responsibility for the Oct. 7 attack, in which hundreds of Hamas militants burst into Israel and allegedly killed over 1,400 people and took some 240 hostages back to Gaza. He says officials, including himself, will have to give answers to the public, but only after the war.

Israeli warplanes struck a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip early Sunday, killing at least 33 people and wounding dozens, health officials said. The strike came as Israel said it would press on with its offensive to crush the territory's Hamas rulers, despite U.S. appeals for a pause to get aid to desperate civilians.

The soaring death toll in Gaza has sparked growing international anger, with tens of thousands from Washington to Berlin taking to the streets Saturday to demand an immediate cease-fire.

Julia Norman, an associate professor of politics and international relations at University College London, has said that both U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah -- two actors who “are going to be very influential on how the conflict moves from this point” -- have both offered signals Friday against a wider war.

“That’s not to say it won’t, but the messaging today from both seemed to be ... trying to operate within a sense of restraint and to not have this ripple out even further,” she said.

Palestinians in Gaza reported Israeli airstrikes overnight into Saturday across the besieged enclave, including the southern part where Israel had told civilians to seek refuge as its ground operation intensifies in northern Gaza.

Raed Mattar, who had fled northern Gaza early in the war and is sheltering in a school in the southern town of Khan Younis, said he heard explosions, apparently from airstrikes.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pushed back against growing U.S. pressure for a "humanitarian pause" in the nearly month-old war to protect civilians and allow more aid into Gaza, insisting there would be no temporary cease-fire until the roughly 240 hostages held by Hamas are released.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made his third trip to Israel since the war began, reiterating American support for Israel's campaign to crush Hamas after its unprecedented Oct. 7 attack in Israel. He also echoed President Joe Biden's calls for a brief halt in the fighting to address the worsening humanitarian crisis.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Israel on Friday that it risks destroying an eventual possibility for peace unless it acts swiftly to improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza for Palestinian civilians as it intensifies its war against Hamas.

In a blunt call for Israel to pause military operations in the territory to allow for the immediate and increased delivery of assistance, Blinken said the current situation would drive Palestinians toward further radicalism and effectively end prospects for any eventual resumption of peace talks to end the conflict.

President Joe Biden is gathering leaders from 10 other countries across the Americas on Friday in the U.S. capital to discuss the tightening of supply chains and address migration issues.

In a preview of the first Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity Leaders' Summit, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Thursday that the two-day event would be a "once in a generation opportunity" to shift more of the global supply chains to the Western Hemisphere.

A wildfire abetted by storm winds in eastern Spain has burned some 2,000 hectares (4,900 acres) of land and forced the evacuation of 850 people from four towns, officials said Friday.

Some 200 firefighters and army emergency unit soldiers were deployed to try to extinguish the day-old blaze near the eastern town of Montitxelvo. The regional government of Valencia said it hoped five water-carrying planes and helicopters would be deployed in the operation.

Celebratory gunshots rang out over Beirut as thousands packed into a square in the Lebanese capital's southern suburbs on Friday to watch a televised speech by Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

It was Nasrallah's first public remarks since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war, sparked by the Palestinian militants deadly Oct. 7 incursion into southern Israel.