Israeli attacks on Gaza have killed at least 41 Palestinians since the bombardment began three days ago, amid the escalation of tensions following the killing of a senior member of the Palestinian movement Islamic Jihad just before the weekend.

10 children were among those killed in the latest "Israeli aggression" since Friday, and 265 people have been wounded, said health authorities in the enclave where several buildings were reduced to rubble.

The fighting is the worst in Gaza since a war last year devastated the besieged coastal territory, home to some 2.3 million Palestinians, and forced Israelis to seek shelter from rockets.

Israel pressed on with its aerial and artillery bombardment of positions of Islamic Jihad, an Iran-backed group, as the movement has fired over 500 rockets in return.

The Israeli army has said the entire "senior leadership of the military wing of the Islamic Jihad in Gaza has been neutralized," and Prime Minister Yair Lapid vowed Sunday that "the operation will continue as long as necessary."

On Sunday, Israel said it killed a senior Islamic Jihad commander in a crowded Gaza refugee camp, the second such targeted attack since it launched its high-stakes military offensive against the group.

UN calls for halting attacks

United Nations Special Envoy Tor Wennesland has warned against the "devastating consequences" of the ongoing Israeli offensive on the Palestinians in Gaza. "I am deeply concerned by the ongoing escalation between Palestinian militants and Israel," Wennesland said in a statement. The U.N. envoy described the escalation as "very dangerous" and called on "all sides to avoid further escalation."

"The responsibility is with the parties to avoid this (escalation) from happening," he added.

The attacks came amid rising tensions across the Palestinian territories since Monday when Israeli forces detained Bassam al-Saadi, a senior leader of the Islamic Jihad group, in a raid in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin.

The Israeli army has imposed further restrictions on the Gaza Strip, including the closure of border crossings with other parts of Palestine, amid fears of a retaliatory response from Islamic Jihad to the arrest.

The United States said on Friday that it is working with Israel, Palestine and regional partners to restore "calm" after Israeli airstrikes on the besieged Gaza Strip. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby urged all parties "to avoid further escalation," and said the Biden administration remains "unwavering in our commitment to Israel security."

"We will continue to work to strengthen all aspects of the U.S.-Israeli partnership. We absolutely fully support Israel's right to defend itself against terrorist groups that have taken the lives of innocent civilians," he told reporters on a conference call.

The European Union on Saturday called for restraint from all sides to avoid further escalation and casualties in the Gaza Strip. "The EU calls for maximum restraint on all sides in order to avoid a further escalation and further casualties," in and around Gaza, the lead spokesperson of the bloc's diplomatic service, Peter Stano, said in a statement. The text pointed out that the bloc "follows with great concern" the ongoing escalation which "has already led to a number of casualties, with a number of people killed, including civilians and a 5-year-old Palestinian girl." Stano acknowledged Israel's right to protect its civilian population but warned that a "broader conflict" with more causalities and suffering on both sides should be avoided. He also reiterated the EU's call for dialogue "to restore a political horizon and to ensure a sustainable situation" in the region.

Jordan demanded Friday that Israel "immediately stop" its aggression on the Gaza Strip. The country's foreign ministry urged the international community to take "urgent and effective" action to stop the escalation and provide protection to the Palestinian people. Spokesperson Haitham Abu Al-Ful warned of "dangerous" consequences for the Israeli escalation and terrorizing civilians, which "will only increase tension and violence and deepen the environment of despair." He said: "The solution to the problem of the Gaza Strip and preventing the escalation of violence lies in finding a real political horizon by returning to the negotiating table to achieve a just peace on the basis of the two-state solution." Al-Ful also said what would solve the problem would also be "lifting the unjust siege on the Gaza Strip, promptly addressing the humanitarian needs in it, and respecting the rules of international law and resolutions of international legitimacy."

Qatar also voiced its strong condemnation of Israeli "aggression" against the Gaza Strip. In a statement, Qatar's foreign ministry stressed "the need for the international community to act urgently to stop the repeated attacks by the occupation against civilians, especially women and children." The statement reiterated Qatar's "firm" position on the justice of the Palestinian cause, the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, and the establishment of their independent state on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Egypt’s Al-Azhar, the highest seat of learning in the Sunni Muslim world, also condemned the Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip. "Al-Azhar denounces this unreasonable and unacceptable global silence, which encourages the Zionist entity to continue its immoral and barbaric violations of human rights, and its repeated attacks against our innocent Palestinian brothers," it said in a statement, referring to Israel. The prestigious institution termed the Israeli practices against Palestinians as "a black spot on the record of the international community and humanity." It called on Arabs and Muslims "to unite to support the Palestinians and their just cause as well as their legitimate struggle."

Saudi Arabia late Saturday also condemned the ongoing Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip. A statement by the Saudi foreign ministry said the kingdom stands by the Palestinian people, calling on the international community to "shoulder its responsibility to end the escalation, provide the necessary protection to civilians and exert all efforts to end this conflict." Saudi Arabia does not have diplomatic relations with Israel.

Islamic Jihad commander, Khaled Mansour, was killed in an airstrike on an apartment building in the Rafah refugee camp in southern Gaza late Saturday.

Two other members of the group and five civilians were also killed in the attack, bringing the Palestinian death toll to 31 since the start of the Israeli offensive on Friday. Among the dead were six children and four women.

Palestinian resistance group Hamas on Sunday called for international intervention to halt the ongoing Israeli attacks on the blockaded Gaza Strip.

"We call for an urgent action to stop the aggression on Gaza and end all crimes and violations of the Zionist enemy (Israel) against our (Palestinian) people and holy sites," Hamas spokesperson Fawzi Barhoum said in a statement.

He decried the continued silence of the international community to the Israeli military offensive as "a stain of shame."

Israel claims some of the deaths were caused by errant rocket fire, including one incident in the Jebaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza in which six Palestinians were killed Saturday. On Sunday, a projectile hit a home in the same area of Jebaliya, killing two men. Palestine held Israel responsible, while Israel said it was investigating whether the area was hit by an errant rocket.

Mansour, the Islamic Jihad commander for southern Gaza, was in the apartment of a member of the movement when the missile struck, flattening the three-story building and badly damaging nearby houses.

"Suddenly, without warning, the house next to us was bombed and everything became black and dusty with smoke in the blink of an eye," said Wissam Jouda, who lives next to the targeted building.

Ahmed al-Qaissi, another neighbor, said his wife and son were among the wounded, suffering shrapnel injuries. To make way for rescue workers, al-Qaissi agreed to have part of his house demolished.

The Rafah strike was the deadliest so far in the current round of fighting, which was initiated by Israel on Friday with the targeted killing of Islamic Jihad's commander for northern Gaza.

Israel has said it took action against the movement because of concrete threats of an imminent attack, but has not provided details. Caretaker Prime Minister Yair Lapid, who is an experienced diplomat but untested in overseeing a war, unleashed the offensive less than three months before a general election in which he is campaigning to keep the job.

The Israeli army said some 580 rockets were fired toward Israel. The army said its air defenses had intercepted many of them, with two of those shot down being fired toward Jerusalem. Air raid sirens sounded in the Jerusalem area for the first time Sunday since last year’s Israel-Hamas war.

Jerusalem is typically a flash point during periods of cross-border fighting between Israel and Gaza. Hundreds of Israeli settlers forced their way into the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex in occupied East Jerusalem, according to a Palestinian official.

The official with the Jordan-run Islamic Waqf Department told Anadolu Agency (AA) that the settlers entered the site through the mosque’s Al-Mugharbah Gate under Israeli police protection. He said the settlers were escorted by right-wing rabbi Yehuda Glick.

Al-Aqsa Mosque is the world's third-holiest site for Muslims. Jews call the area the "Temple Mount," claiming it was the site of two Jewish temples in ancient times.

Since 2003, Israel has allowed settlers into the compound almost daily. Israel occupied East Jerusalem, where Al-Aqsa is located, during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. It annexed the entire city in 1980 in a move never recognized by the international community.

Meanwhile, in Palestinian cities and towns in the West Bank, Israeli security forces said they detained 19 people on suspicion of belonging to Islamic Jihad during overnight raids.

'We are all alone'

Daily life in the Gaza strip has come to a standstill, with the sole power station shut down due to a lack of fuel after Israel closed its border crossings.

Gaza's health ministry said the next few hours will be "crucial and difficult," warning that without electricity it soon risked suspending vital services.

In Gaza City, resident Dounia Ismail said the Israeli bombardment "brings back images of fear, anxiety and the feeling that we are all alone."

Civilians in southern and central Israel, meanwhile, were forced into air raid shelters, with two people hospitalized with shrapnel wounds and 13 others lightly hurt while running for safety, the Magen David Adom emergency service said.

"It's tense, it's frightening," said Beverly Jamil, a resident of Ashkelon close to Gaza, who has been rushing repeatedly to her air raid shelter.

"Ashkelon's a ghost town – it's a holiday, kids should be out playing," she added.

Caretaker leader

The current fighting comes as Israel is mired in a protracted political crisis that is sending voters to the polls for the fifth time in less than four years in the fall.

Caretaker leader Yair Lapid took over earlier this summer after the ideologically diverse government he helped form collapsed, triggering the new elections.

Lapid, a centrist former TV host and author, lacks the security background many Israelis see as essential for their leadership. His political fortunes could rest on the current fighting, either gaining a boost if he can portray himself as a capable leader or take a hit from a lengthy operation as Israelis enjoy the last weeks of summer.

Lapid hopes to edge out former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a security hawk who is on trial for corruption charges, in the upcoming vote.