Israel Steps Up Aerial Strikes in Gaza

GAZA — Israel expanded its four-day assault on Gaza on Saturday, broadening its airstrikes from military targets to the civilian political infrastructure, leveling the headquarters here of the Hamas prime minister and striking police and security buildings.

Hamas continued to fire rockets at Israel, including a pair intended for the city of Tel Aviv. One landed harmlessly, probably at sea; the other was thwarted in midair by Israel.

In Cairo, the leaders of Hamas, Turkey and Qatar gathered to try to broker a truce. Hamas officials were in indirect contact with Israel through Egyptian intelligence intermediaries, an official of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood said.

The talks were reported to be deadlocked on Saturday evening, while continued attacks in Gaza and Israel, and Israeli preparations for a possible ground invasion, suggested that neither side was ready to end the fight.

The air raid that struck the office of the Hamas prime minister, Ismael Haniyeh, came about 4 a.m., reducing the four-story building where weekly cabinet meetings were held to a huge pile of rubble.

Three Palestinian flags that used to hang over the entryway were draped across the dusty mess, with datebooks and personnel records scattered about. Mr. Haniyeh’s gray-bearded face beamed from a page  of a Hamas booklet promoting “the government’s achievements despite the obstacles.”

A security official, who asked to be identified only as Abu el Abed, took one of the fallen flags and replanted it upright. “We will rebuild this place as we have rebuilt others,” he said. “Every structure that is demolished or destroyed is a big loss, but the blood of anybody wounded is more important than any structure. This place will be rebuilt and the occupation will go and we will stay.”

Mark Regev, a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, said government buildings had been targeted because Hamas “makes no distinction between its terrorist military machine and the government structure.”

“We have seen Hamas consistently using so-called civilian facilities for the purposes of hiding their terrorist military machine, including weapons,” Mr. Regev said.

The Israeli military said that it had struck more than 200 targets overnight, including underground rocket launchers and smuggling tunnels in Rafah, on the Gaza-Egypt border. The military also said that it struck the police and homeland security headquarters of Hamas, as well as the house of a Hamas commander, Ahmed Randor.

Hamas’s military wing, the Qassam Brigades, claimed responsibility for firing an Iranian-made rocket at Tel Aviv.

Israel appeared to be keeping up the pressure on military targets as well.

Hamas said seven of its members were killed Saturday morning in two separate attacks — four in Rafah, and three in the Al Maghazi refugee camp, in the middle of the Gaza Strip. The deadliest airstrikes today were reported in the southern town of Rafah, which borders Egypt, where six people, including four Hamas fighters, were killed in separate raids.

Israeli F16 airplanes hit a house for a commander of the Qassam Brigades in southeast Gaza City, but the house was empty at the time, Hamas officials said. The Israeli military also released video of what it said was an attack Saturday on the house of the Hamas northern brigade commander, Ahmed Randor, and said that it showed the secondary explosions that took place because of ammunition stored under the commander’s house.

The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said that 40 Palestinians had been killed in the fighting so far, and more than 385 people wounded. Three Israelis have been killed.

This latest battle between Israel and Hamas, the Islamist militant group that controls Gaza, began Wednesday, when Israel launched airstrikes on Gaza in retaliation for a surge of rocket attacks in recent months from Gaza. The assault has drawn comparisons to Israel’s invasion of Gaza in late 2008, but so far Israeli ground forces have not entered Gaza.

Last week, Israel shifted infantry brigades, authorized the calling up of 75,000 reservists and blocked roads near Gaza, indicating an invasion of the coastal territory was possible.

The region’s political landscape has also shifted since the war four years ago, with Hamas gaining crucial allies in Egypt, Turkey and Qatar, as well as longer-range, apparently Iranian-made, missiles.

Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system appears to have successfully intercepted many of the rockets from Gaza. After an attack on Tel Aviv last week, Israel deployed an Iron Dome anti-missile battery near the city, which became operational on Saturday.

The missiles intercepted one of the Hamas rockets on Saturday evening in the sky above the city, Israeli authorities and witnesses said.

In Cairo, a senior official of the Muslim Brotherhood confirmed that President Morsi was working furiously to secure a cease-fire but insisted that the Israeli side of the talks remained the “sticking point.” The official did not identify a specific issue.

While the regional leaders met in various combinations around Cairo, foreign ministers of members of the Arab League met in an emergency closed door meeting to discuss responses to the situation, Egypt’s Foreign Ministry said.

President Obama, who has asked President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt to try to mediate the crisis, called Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey on Friday to press for a solution, the White House said. Mr. Erdogan was among the regional leaders meeting in Cairo.

The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s powerful Islamist group, called for Mr. Morsi to expel Israel’s ambassador and freeze relations with Israel. Mr. Morsi, a former Brotherhood leader, had already recalled Egypt’s ambassador to Israel.

In Gaza City, Ghazi Hamad, the deputy foreign minister of Hamas, said Israel’s shift in strategy, attacking Hamas government buildings, would not significantly change the dynamic of the current fighting.

“Israel has the capacity to destroy all buildings in Gaza, all homes,” he said. “They destroyed our government buildings before many times, but we rebuild again. It’s a long struggle, a long story. It will not stop today or tomorrow.”

Jodi Rudoren reported from Gaza, and Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem. Reporting was contributed by Fares Akram and Tyler Hicks from Gaza City, and Mayy El Sheikh and David D. Kirkpatrick from Cairo.

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You for Sale: Your Online Attention, Bought in an Instant by Advertisers

Monica Almeida/The New York Times

Frank Addante, 36, chief executive of the Rubicon Project, says that 97 percent of American Internet users encounter its electronic ad sales system every month. And most aren’t even aware of it.

YOU can be sold in seconds.

Beverly Orr

“Online consumers are being bought and sold like chattel,” says Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy.

No, wait: make that milliseconds.

The odds are that access to you — or at least the online you — is being bought and sold in less than the blink of an eye. On the Web, powerful algorithms are sizing you up, based on myriad data points: what you Google, the sites you visit, the ads you click. Then, in real time, the chance to show you an ad is auctioned to the highest bidder.

Not that you’d know it. These days in the hyperkinetic world of digital advertising, all of this happens automatically, and imperceptibly, to most consumers.

Ever wonder why that same ad for a car or a couch keeps popping up on your screen? Nearly always, the answer is real-time bidding, an electronic trading system that sells ad space on the Web pages people visit at the very moment they are visiting them. Think of these systems as a sort of Nasdaq stock market, only trading in audiences for online ads. Millions of bids flood in every second. And those bids — essentially what your eyeballs are worth to advertisers — could determine whether you see an ad for, say, a new Lexus or a used Ford, for sneakers or a popcorn maker.

One big player in this space is the Rubicon Project. Never heard of it? Consider this: Rubicon, based in Los Angeles, has actually eclipsed Google in one crucial area — the percentage of Internet users in the United States reached by display ads sold through its platform, according to comScore, a digital analytics company.

Rubicon is among a handful of technology companies that have quietly developed automated ad sales systems for Web site operators. The bidders are marketers seeking to identify their best prospects and pitch them before they move to the next Web page. It is a form of high-frequency trading — that souped-up business of algorithm-loving Wall Streeters. But in this case, the prize is the attention of ordinary people. And it all depends on data-mining to instantly evaluate the audiences available to see those online display ads, the ones that appear on Web sites next to or around content.

In industry parlance, each digital ad space is an impression. The value of an impression depends on several factors, like the size of the ad, the type of person who is available to see it and that person’s location.

“The first impression seen by a high-value person on the opening page of a major newspaper first thing in the morning has a different value than a user from China who is 12 and has been on the Web all day long playing games,” says Frank Addante, the founder and chief executive of Rubicon.

Yet for most of us, real-time bidding is invisible. About 97 percent of American Internet users interact with Rubicon’s system every month, Mr. Addante says, and most of them aren’t aware of it.

That worries some federal regulators and consumer advocates, who say that such electronic trading systems could unfairly stratify consumers, covertly offering better pricing to certain people while relegating others to inferior treatment. A computer-generated class system is one risk, they say, of an ad-driven Internet powered by surveillance.

“As you profile more and more people, you’ll start to segregate people into ‘the people you can get money out of’ and ‘the people you can’t get money out of,’ ” says Dan Auerbach, a staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital civil rights group in San Francisco, who formerly worked in digital ad data-mining. “That is one of the dangers we should be worried about.”

Of course, ad agencies and brands can tailor ads to Web users without real-time bidding. They can also buy ads without aiming them at narrow audience groups. But for marketers, the marriage of ad- and audience-buying is one of the benefits of real-time bidding.

Not so long ago, they simply bought ad spaces based on a site’s general demographics and then showed every visitor the same ad, a practice called “spray and pray.” Now marketers can aim just at their ideal customers — like football fans who earn more than $100,000 a year, or mothers in Denver in the market for an S.U.V. — showing them tailored ads at the exact moment they are available on a specific Web page.

“We are not buying content as a proxy for audience,” says Paul Alfieri, the vice president for marketing at Turn, a data management company and automated buy-side platform for marketers based in Redwood City, Calif. “We are just buying who the audience is.”

Still, for many consumer advocates, real-time bidding resembles nothing so much as a cattle auction.

“Online consumers are being bought and sold like chattel,” says Jeffrey Chester, the executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, a consumer group in Washington that has filed a complaint about real-time bidding with the Federal Trade Commission. “It’s dehumanizing.”

FRANK ADDANTE is 36 years old and given to wearing black shirts with a white Rubicon logo on the front. Rubicon is the fifth company he has started or helped to found.

In 1996, in his dorm room at the Illinois Institute of Technology, he developed and introduced a search engine. He later helped found L90, a digital ad technology company that went public and was later acquired by DoubleClick. His fourth enterprise, StrongMail Systems, provides e-mail delivery infrastructure to large companies.

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Well: Meatless Main Dishes for a Holiday Table

Most vegetarian diners are happy to fill their plates with delicious sides and salads, but if you want to make them feel special, consider one of these main course vegetarian dishes from Martha Rose Shulman. All of them are inspired by Greek cooking, which has a rich tradition of vegetarian meals.

I know that Greek food is not exactly what comes to mind when you hear the word “Thanksgiving,” yet why not consider this cuisine if you’re searching for a meatless main dish that will please a crowd? It’s certainly a better idea, in my mind, than Tofurky and all of the other overprocessed attempts at making a vegan turkey. If you want to serve something that will be somewhat reminiscent of a turkey, make the stuffed acorn squashes in this week’s selection, and once they’re out of the oven, stick some feathers in the “rump,” as I did for the first vegetarian Thanksgiving I ever cooked: I stuffed and baked a huge crookneck squash, then decorated it with turkey feathers. The filling wasn’t nearly as good as the one you’ll get this week, but the creation was fun.

Here are five new vegetarian recipes for your Thanksgiving table — or any time.

Giant Beans With Spinach, Tomatoes and Feta: This delicious, dill-infused dish is inspired by a northern Greek recipe from Diane Kochilas’s wonderful new cookbook, “The Country Cooking of Greece.”

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Northern Greek Mushroom and Onion Pie: Meaty portobello mushrooms make this a very substantial dish.

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Roasted Eggplant and Chickpeas With Cinnamon-Tinged Tomato Sauce and Feta: This fragrant and comforting dish can easily be modified for vegans.

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Coiled Greek Winter Squash Pie: The extra time this beautiful vegetable pie takes to assemble is worth it for a holiday dinner.

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Baked Acorn Squash Stuffed With Wild Rice and Kale Risotto: Serve one squash to each person at your Thanksgiving meal: They’ll be like miniature vegetarian (or vegan) turkeys.

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Well: Meatless Main Dishes for a Holiday Table

Most vegetarian diners are happy to fill their plates with delicious sides and salads, but if you want to make them feel special, consider one of these main course vegetarian dishes from Martha Rose Shulman. All of them are inspired by Greek cooking, which has a rich tradition of vegetarian meals.

I know that Greek food is not exactly what comes to mind when you hear the word “Thanksgiving,” yet why not consider this cuisine if you’re searching for a meatless main dish that will please a crowd? It’s certainly a better idea, in my mind, than Tofurky and all of the other overprocessed attempts at making a vegan turkey. If you want to serve something that will be somewhat reminiscent of a turkey, make the stuffed acorn squashes in this week’s selection, and once they’re out of the oven, stick some feathers in the “rump,” as I did for the first vegetarian Thanksgiving I ever cooked: I stuffed and baked a huge crookneck squash, then decorated it with turkey feathers. The filling wasn’t nearly as good as the one you’ll get this week, but the creation was fun.

Here are five new vegetarian recipes for your Thanksgiving table — or any time.

Giant Beans With Spinach, Tomatoes and Feta: This delicious, dill-infused dish is inspired by a northern Greek recipe from Diane Kochilas’s wonderful new cookbook, “The Country Cooking of Greece.”

---

Northern Greek Mushroom and Onion Pie: Meaty portobello mushrooms make this a very substantial dish.

---

Roasted Eggplant and Chickpeas With Cinnamon-Tinged Tomato Sauce and Feta: This fragrant and comforting dish can easily be modified for vegans.

---

Coiled Greek Winter Squash Pie: The extra time this beautiful vegetable pie takes to assemble is worth it for a holiday dinner.

---

Baked Acorn Squash Stuffed With Wild Rice and Kale Risotto: Serve one squash to each person at your Thanksgiving meal: They’ll be like miniature vegetarian (or vegan) turkeys.

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If I Hire You, What’s Your 100-Day Plan?

John Duffy of 3C Interactive says he asks job candidates to describe what their first months on the job would be like, partly to “learn what their expectations are, and where they think we’re at.”

Find the best job in the New York metro area and beyond.

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10 Universities to Form Semester Online Consortium

Starting next fall, 10 prominent universities, including Duke, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Northwestern, will form a consortium called Semester Online, offering about 30 online courses to both their students — for whom the classes will be covered by their regular tuition — and to students elsewhere who would have to apply and be accepted and pay tuition of more than $4,000 a course.

Semester Online will be operated through the educational platform 2U, formerly known as 2tor, and will simulate many aspects of a classroom: Students will be able to raise their hands virtually, break into smaller discussion groups and arrange and hold online study sessions.

The virtual classroom is a cross between a Google+ hangout and the opening sequence of “The Brady Bunch,” where each student has his or her own square, the equivalent of a classroom chair. However, with Semester Online courses, there is no sneaking in late and unnoticed, and there is no back row.

Unlike the increasingly popular massive open online courses, or MOOCs, free classes offered by universities like Harvard, M.I.T. and Stanford, Semester Online classes will be small — and will offer credit.

“Now we can provide students with a course that mirrors our classroom experience,” says Edward S. Macias, provost and executive vice chancellor for academic affairs at Washington University in St. Louis, one of the participants.

“It’s going to be the most rigorous, live, for-credit online experience ever,” said Chip Paucek, a founder of 2U.

For many of the participating schools, which include Brandeis, Emory, Notre Dame, the University of Rochester, Vanderbilt and Wake Forest, Semester Online offerings will be their first undergraduate for-credit online courses, and the first to offer credit to students from outside the universities.

One draw for the colleges is the expansion in their course catalogs.

“No university can deliver the full range of courses that both might be interesting and useful and enlightening to our students,” said Peter Lange, the provost of Duke. “Imagine if you don’t have a person who works on the Sahel region in Africa, but another school does.”

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Well: Learning That Odd Is Normal

A few months ago, I was at home reading a review copy of “Oddly Normal” by my colleague John Schwartz. The book begins with the suicide attempt of John’s then 13-year-old son, Joe, who had recently told his classmates he was gay. It goes on to explain how Joe’s parents struggled with a school system that didn’t always understand their son, and how Joe eventually found the path to self acceptance.

But my plan to read the book was interrupted when my 8th-grade daughter, intrigued by the title, pulled it out of my hands and read the first few pages. She was captivated and decided to read all of it for her next school book report.

Later she wrote about how moved she was by Joe’s story and how she wished she could “give him a hug and tell him that it would all turn out O.K.” The book, she wrote, “is full of life lessons that are extremely important for every young person to understand…. Being an individual is amazing, and no one should hide their true personality. Eventually, Joe learned to be the person he wanted to be, and he realized that everyone is a little odd and different.”

While “Oddly Normal” has been discussed as a great book for parents, I think teenagers will relate to Joe’s struggles and learn a lot from his honesty. You can meet Joe in a new video, in which he talks about himself, his father’s book and life as a gay teen. To learn more about the book, read the recent New York Times Sunday book review “Something to Tell You.”

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Change Rattles Leading Health-Funding Agency

Major changes erupted at one of the world’s leading health-funding agencies Thursday as it hired a new director, dismissed the inspector general who had clashed with a previous director and announced a new approach to making grants.

Alex Wong/Getty Images

Dr. Mark Dybul, who led the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, in 2007.

Dr. Mark Dybul, the Bush administration’s global AIDS czar who was abruptly dismissed when President Obama took office, was named the new executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Dr. Dybul, who was selected over candidates from Canada, Britain and France, was backed by the United States, which donates about a third of the fund’s budget, and by Bill Gates, who helped the fund through a cash crisis earlier this year.

He is respected by many AIDS activists in the United States, though there is some lingering controversy about his time in the Bush administration related to abstinence policies and anti-prostitution pledges imposed by conservative lawmakers as well as concerning strict licensing requirements for generic drugs.

The fund, which is based in Geneva and has given away more than $20 billion since its founding in 2002, has been in crisis for more than a year. Some donors shied away after widely publicized corruption scandals, while others, notably Mr. Gates, said the scandals were exaggerated and increased donations.

Its last executive director, Dr. Michel Kazatchkine, quit in January after the day-to-day management duties of his job were given to a Brazilian banker, Gabriel Jaramillo, who was charged with cutting expenses.

By some accounts, 40 percent of the employees soon left, although Seth Faison, a fund spokesman, said the total number of employees declined by only 8 percent. The fund also dismissed its inspector general, John Parsons, on Thursday, citing unsatisfactory work.

Mr. Parsons and Dr. Kazatchkine had privately clashed. Mr. Parsons’s teams aggressively pursued theft and fraud, and found it in Mali, Mauritania and elsewhere. But the total amount stolen — $10 million to $20 million — was relatively small, and aides to Dr. Kazatchkine said the fund cut off those countries and sought to retrieve the money. The aides claimed that Mr. Parsons, who reported only to the board, went to news outlets and left the impression that the fund was covering up rampant theft.

The fuss scared off some donor countries that were already looking for excuses to cut back on foreign aid because of the global economic crisis.

Mr. Parsons did not return messages left for him Thursday.

Dr. Dybul’s appointment was welcomed by the United Nations AIDS program, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, Malaria No More and Results.org, an anti-poverty lobbying group. By contrast, Jamie Love, an American advocate for cheaper AIDS drugs who works in Washington and Geneva, said he expected Dr. Dybul “to protect drug companies.”

The fund also announced a new application process, which it said would be faster and focus more on the hardest-hit countries rather than all 150 that received some help in the past.

In an interview, Dr. Dybul said he felt the fund was “on a strong forward trajectory” after changes were put in place in the last year by Mr. Jaramillo, and now would focus on “hard-nosed implementation of value for money.”

Both the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and the fund spend billions, but in different ways.

The fund supports projects proposed by national health ministers and then hires local auditors to make sure the money is not wasted or stolen. Pepfar usually gives grants to American nonprofit groups or medical schools and lets them form partnerships with hospitals or charities in the affected countries.

The conventional wisdom is that the Global Fund’s model is more likely to win the cooperation of government officials but more vulnerable to corruption — and also spends less on salaries and travel for American overseers.

Dr. Kazatchkine said he did not expect Dr. Dybul to “Pepfarize” the Global Fund.

“I hope that, after a year of turbulence, the fund finds the serenity needed to move forward again,” he said.

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Wealth Matters: Advisers Caution Against Hasty Decisions in Advance of Tax Changes

WITH all the ominous talk of tax increases and a “fiscal cliff” if President Obama and Congressional leaders can’t agree on a plan to avert automatic tax increases on Dec. 31, some investors may be tempted to act soon to take advantage of the current tax rates.

But financial advisers say that in their rush to do something this year, investors may end up with regrets.

“Any time you make a decision purely for tax reasons, it has a way of coming back and biting you,” said Mag Black-Scott, chief executive of Beverly Hills Wealth Management. “Could you be at a 43 percent tax on dividends instead of 15 percent? The straight answer is yes, of course you could. But what if that doesn’t happen? What if they increase just slightly?”

Various proposals are on the table, but the taxes the wealthy say they worry most about are an increase in the capital gains rate to 20 percent from 15 percent, which would affect investments like stocks and second homes; an increase in the 15 percent tax on dividends; and a limitation on deductions, which would effectively increase the tax bill. For the truly wealthy, there is also the question of what will happen to estate and gift taxes.

In addition, the health care law sets a 3.8 percent Medicare tax on investment income for individuals with more than $200,000 in annual income (and couples with more than $250,000). Taking taxes on capital gains as an example, Ms. Black-Scott, who started her career at Morgan Stanley in the late 1970s, said people needed to remember that the rates were 28 percent when Ronald Reagan was president. “If they go from 15 to 20 percent, is it really that bad?” she asked. “You need to say, ‘Do I like the stock?’ If you do, why would you get rid of it?”

Here is a look at some of the top areas where short-term decisions based solely on taxes could end up hindering long-term investment goals.

APPRECIATED STOCK Many people have large holdings in a single stock, often the result of working for a company for many years. And the stock may have appreciated significantly over that time. But if they are selling now solely for tax reasons, advisers say they shouldn’t. The stock may continue to do well and more than compensate for increased capital gains.

But there is an upside to an increase in the capital gains rate: wealthier clients may finally be pushed to diversify their holdings. “If you have 75 percent of your wealth in one stock, then it’s a really appropriate time to think about this,” said Timothy R. Lee, managing director of Monument Wealth Management. If the increased tax rate “is a motivating factor for some people, O.K. Letting go of that control and the pride that goes with it is a really difficult decision.”

Selling stock now may also make sense when it is in the form of stock options set to expire early next year. “Do you want to take the risk the price will drop in January?” asked Melissa Labant, director of the tax team at the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. “What if we have a fiscal cliff or a change in the markets? If you’re comfortable, do it now.”

Some investors may also fear that higher taxes will drive all stocks down. Patrick S. Boyle, investment strategist at Bessemer Trust, said there was no historical link between tax increases and stock market performance.

In the most recent three tax increases, he says, “the market has actually gone up in the six months before and after.” He added: “It’s not that tax rates aren’t important. They are. It’s just that there are so many other things going on that are more important than tax policy.”

MUNICIPAL BONDS Bonds sold to finance state and local government projects are tax-free now and will be tax-free next year. That is no reason to load up on them.

Tax-free municipal bonds have always been attractive to people in higher-income tax brackets. Now, advisers fear that individuals just above the $200,000 threshold, people who say they do not feel wealthy but will probably be paying higher taxes on their income and investments, will try to offset that increase by moving more of their investments into municipal bonds.

Beth Gamel, a certified public accountant and executive vice president at Pillar Financial Advisers, imagined a case where people in higher tax brackets, thinking they were acting rationally, sold stocks this year to take advantage of the lower capital gains rates and then, to avoid higher taxes next year, put all or some of that money into municipal bonds. Maybe they outsmart the tax man, but they do so at risk to their retirement.

“It will be very difficult for them to reach their long-term goals,” she said, “because the yield on muni bonds is lower than stocks over time.”

Or as Will Braman, chief investment officer of Ballentine Partners, said of this trade-off: “It’s not about minimizing the taxes but maximizing the after-tax returns.”

He suggested that people use their deductions to reduce what is owed from taxable securities.

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Attacks Resume After Israeli Assault Kills Hamas Leader

KIRYAT MALACHI, Israel — Israel and Hamas widened their increasingly deadly conflict over Gaza on Thursday, as a militant rocket killed three civilians in an apartment block in this small southern town. The deaths were likely to lead Israel to intensify its military offensive on Gaza, now in its second day of airstrikes.

In Gaza, the Palestinian death toll rose to 11 as Israel struck what the military described as medium- and long-range rocket and infrastructure sites and rocket-launching squads. The military said it had dispersed leaflets over Gaza warning residents to stay away from Hamas operatives and facilities, suggesting that more was to come.

The regional perils of the situation sharpened, meanwhile, as President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt warned on Thursday that his country stood by the Palestinians against what he termed Israeli aggression, echoing similar condemnation on Wednesday.

“The Egyptian people, the Egyptian leadership, the Egyptian government, and all of Egypt is standing with all its resources to stop this assault, to prevent the killing and the bloodshed of Palestinians,” Mr. Morsi said in nationally televised remarks before a crisis meeting of senior ministers. He also instructed his prime minister to lead a delegation to Gaza on Friday and said he had contacted President Obama to discuss strategies to “stop these acts and doings and the bloodshed and aggression.”

In language that reflected the upheaval in the political dynamics of the Middle East since the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak last year, Mr. Morsi said: “Israelis must realize that we don’t accept this aggression and it could only lead to instability in the region and has a major negative impact on stability and security in the region.”

The thrust of Mr. Morsi’s words seemed confined to diplomatic maneuvers, including calls to the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, the head of the Arab League and President Obama.

The 120-nation Nonalignmed Movement, the biggest bloc at the United Nations, added its condemnation of the Gaza airstrikes in a statement released by Iran, the group’s rotating president and one of Israel’s most ardent foes. “Israel, the occupying power, is, once more, escalating its military campaign against the Palestinian people, particularly in the Gaza Strip,” the group’s coordinating bureau said in the statement. The group made no mention of the Palestinian rocket fire but condemned what it called “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.”

In his conversation with Mr. Obama, Mr. Morsi said, he “clarified Egypt’s role and Egypt’s position; our care for the relations with the United States of America and the world; and at the same time our complete rejection of this assault and our rejection of these actions, of the bloodshed, and of the siege on Palestinians and their suffering.”

Mr. Obama had agreed to speak with Israeli leaders, Mr. Morsi said.

The Thursday’ deaths in Kiryat Malachi were the first casualties on the Israeli side since Israel launched its assault on Gaza, the most ferocious in four years, in response to persistent Palestinian rocket fire.

Southern Israel has been struck by more than 750 rockets fired from Gaza this year that have hit homes and caused injuries. On Thursday, a rocket smashed into the top floor of an apartment building in Kiryat Malachi, about 15 miles north of Gaza. Two men and one woman were killed, according to witnesses at the scene. A baby was among the injured and several Israelis were hospitalized with shrapnel wounds after rockets hit other southern cities and towns, they said.The apartment house was close to a field in a blue-collar neighborhood and the rocket tore open top-floor apartments, leaving twisted metal window frames and bloodstains.

Nava Chayoun, 40, who lives on the second floor, said her husband, Yitzhak, ran up the stairs immediately after the rocket struck and saw the body of a woman on the floor. He rescued two children from the same apartment and afterward, she said, she and her family “read psalms.”

Isabel Kershner reported from Kiryat Malachi, Israel, and Fares Akram from Gaza. Reporting was contributed by Rina Castelnuovo from Kiryat Malachi; Mayy El Sheikh and David D. Kirkpatrick from Cairo; Gabby Sobelman from Jerusalem; Rick Gladstone from New York; and Alan Cowell from Paris.

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