A group of 34 charities and other non-governmental organizations signed a statement Friday urging an end to the deadly conflict between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas.

The statement was signed by groups including ActionAid, CARE, Oxfam and Save the Children and urged the international community to step up efforts to find a lasting solution to disputes in the region.

Benjamin Netanyahu, initially accused by Israel's most ardent hawks of dithering over Hamas rocket fire, appears to have found at least a temporary political balance with his punishing air campaign against Gaza.

But rivals on the far-right are still snapping at him, some demanding that he strangle the densely populated and impoverished Palestinian enclave by cutting off electricity, fuel and food, and others insisting he send in troops and reoccupy it.

Israel could be violating the laws of war by bombing Palestinian homes in Gaza, the U.N.'s human rights office said Friday, as the death toll from the Israeli strikes rose to 100.

"We have received disturbing reports that many of the civilian casualties, including of children, occurred as a result of strikes on homes," said spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani.

U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu he was worried fierce fighting with Hamas in Gaza could escalate, and offered U.S. help to broker a ceasefire.

Obama spoke to the Israeli leader after Israeli warplanes pounded the Palestinian enclave but did not stop militants firing rockets at cities inside the Jewish state, and as global concern over rising Palestinian casualties mounted.

Several rockets were fired on northern Israel from the outskirts of the town of Mari in Hasbaya on Friday morning, drawing retaliatory Israeli artillery fire, the Lebanese army and the state-run National News Agency said.

The Internal Security Forces Intelligence Bureau later arrested a suspect linked to the attack.

As rockets from nearby Gaza rain down on southern Israel, the residents of Sderot are hoping the spiraling confrontation with Hamas will be the last, even if the Palestinian enclave has to be reoccupied.

In this town close to the Gaza border, living under the ever-present threat of rocket fire has become all too familiar, with sirens announcing incoming missiles several times an hour.

The world's largest Muslim bloc Thursday urged the UN Security Council to force a halt to Israel's air war on Gaza that has killed more than 80 Palestinians in three days.

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation, after a meeting of its executive committee in the Saudi city of Jeddah, said it was forming a ministerial team to lobby the Security Council and international community "to halt the Israeli aggression".

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon appealed Thursday for a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militants, calling on the international community to do everything to halt escalating violence in Gaza.

"It is now more urgent than ever to try to find common ground for a return to calm and a ceasefire understanding," he told an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council in New York.

A ceasefire with Hamas militants in Gaza is "not even on the agenda," Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu told a parliamentary committee Thursday, an Israeli newspaper reported.

"I am not talking to anybody about a ceasefire right now," the website of Haaretz newspaper quoted Netanyahu as telling the Knesset's foreign affairs and defense committee.

Israeli strikes on Gaza killed at least 32 people Thursday as an air war entered its third day, with most of the bloodshed in the southern city of Khan Yunis, medics said.

The latest bloodshed raised to 83 the overall number of Gazans killed since Israel launched Operation Protective Edge early on Tuesday to halt cross-border rocket fire by militant groups.