Terrorists continue to fire at Israel. Jewish state whups their . . .

JERUSALEM - Palestinian militants in Gaza fired more rockets and mortars into Israel Wednesday morning, as Israeli jets retaliated by striking some 25 targets belonging to Hamas even as talk of a cease-fire surfaced.

The restless night, with consistent rocket fire from Gaza on Israeli communities, followed a sharp escalation Tuesday as Palestinian militants in the besieged coastal enclave fired more than 100 rockets and mortars into Israel.

The flare-up is the biggest since Israel and Hamas, the militant Islamist faction that rules Gaza, fought a 50-day war in 2014.

By Wednesday morning, however, there was some indication of a cease-fire between the sides and there was quiet for several hours, though it was unclear if it would hold.

In a statement issued by the Israeli military, it said that the sites targeted by army fighter jets overnight included sheds used to store drones, a rocket manufacturing workshop, advanced naval weaponry, military compounds, training facilities and a munitions manufacturing site.

"The army views the terror activity carried out by the Hamas terror organization with great severity, and will continue to operate in a powerful and determined manner. The army is prepared to carry out its missions as necessary, using the variety of tools at its disposal," wrote the military.

Israeli authorities reported that rockets had caused some damage to communities near the Gaza border, including a direct hit on a residential home and another in the southern Israeli town of Netivot. In the initial barrage on Tuesday morning, a rocket hit a kindergarten, though no children were inside at the time. Local hospitals also reported several light injuries, mainly caused by shrapnel, and one Israeli soldier was in moderate condition.

On Tuesday, Hamas, the militant Islamist group that runs the Gaza Strip, released a joint statement with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad taking responsibility for the attacks, though by early Wednesday the groups said an agreement had been reached to return to the 2014 cease-fire understanding.

"There was a lot of mediation in the past hours," said Khalil al-Hayya, a senior Hamas official, in a statement. He said the factions, including Islamic Jihad, would agree to the cease-fire as long as Israel did the same.

Israeli leaders would not immediately confirm that an agreement had been reached, though local media reported that Israel had sent a message to Hamas that if the rockets stopped, the airstrikes would too.

There has been wide speculation in Israel and Gaza of a wider peace agreement being discussed between two sides, as tensions have soared in the region over the past few months.

"This latest escalation was actually initiated by the Islamic Jihad and not Hamas, partly because there has been progress in reaching an understanding between Hamas and Israel," said Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies and former deputy director general at Israel's Ministry of Strategic Affairs.

He said he believed there had been negotiations in recent weeks between the two sides facilitated by the Egyptians and the Qataris.

"Palestinian Islamic Jihad is a pure Iranian proxy and a very militant organization. Unlike Hamas, they do not have any responsibility to the civilians in Gaza," he said. "They do not want to see any progress to be made between Hamas and Israel because it works against their ideology."

Michael said that Hamas was in a difficult position following weekly mass demonstrations that have taken place at the Israel-Gaza border fence. Israeli forces have killed more than 100 people in those protests, including 60 in one day on May 14.

Israel unilaterally withdrew its settlements and military presence from Gaza in 2005 but after Hamas wrested power over the strip more than a decade ago, it imposed a land and sea blockade on the enclave. Egypt has also kept its crossing into Gaza closed for much of the past 10 years.

A growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza has pushed its residents to start protesting the untenable situation and in late March thousands began the weekly protests demanding both a right to return to land that now sits inside Israel and a solution to the crisis facing more than 2 million residents.

"They sacrificed too much and achieved very little," said Michael. "They've been pressured by the Egyptians and their own civilians to reach a long cease-fire with Israel."

Mukhaimer Abu Saada, a professor of political science at Gaza's al-Azhar University, chalked up the renewal of hostilities to dissatisfaction among Hamas and Islamic Jihad over the current situation that saw continued Israeli shelling.

"Even during the protests there was shelling and they were peaceful," he said, warning that the situation could further deteriorate. "There has still been no declaration of war but the possibility exists."

He said that there was the possibility of containment if Egypt and the U.N. stepped in.

The United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Nickolay Mladenov, urged calm on both sides in a statement released Tuesday.

"Such attacks are unacceptable and undermine the serious efforts by the international community to improve the situation in Gaza," he said.

Itamar Ya'ar, former deputy head of Israel's National Security Council, said it was unlikely the latest escalation would lead to another war, mainly because neither side is interested in such a confrontation, but that "of course, things could change."

"I think that the security establishment has given political leaders enough information for all to realize that getting rid of Hamas means reoccupying Gaza. I don't think serious people in Israel want to reoccupy Gaza," said Ya'ar.

In southern Israel, residents spent much of Tuesday and overnight Wednesday in bomb shelters in what they said was the biggest round of rocket fire since the 2014 summer war.

"This is something we cannot tolerate," said Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, an Israeli army spokesman, who briefed journalists on Tuesday. "Hamas is turning the fence into an active combat zone, and we cannot tolerate attacks on Israeli civilians and military targets."

Among the targets hit by Israel in Gaza on Tuesday was a tunnel built to attack Israel. Conricus said the tunnel was unusual in that it snaked under Gaza's southern border into Egypt's Sinai Peninsula and then made a U-turn back into Israel. He said it was the 10th tunnel discovered and destroyed by Israel since October.