A top opposition Israeli politician said Wednesday that he has reached an agreement to enter a wartime unity government with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Benny Gantz, a former defense minister and military chief of staff, released what he said was a joint statement with Netanyahu.

A potential intervention by Hezbollah and uncertainty over the role played by Iran itself are risk factors that could push the unprecedented conflict between Israel and Hamas into a wider regional war, analysts say.

For now, there is no indication of an impending offensive by Hezbollah against Israel, despite growing border tensions.

Turkey's president on Wednesday vowed to intensify strikes against Kurdish fighters in Syria and Iraq.

"We have already intensified air operations and we will continue, and show the terrorists that we can destroy them anywhere and at any moment," Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, referring to fighters of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) -- listed as a terror group by Ankara and its Western allies.

At the most harrowing of times, some Israeli citizens living overseas aren't running from the war at home, but to it. From Athens to New York, they're rushing to airports and diving into online chat groups for help, desperate to make their way to the country after Hamas militants attacked.

Some of these Israelis abroad are yearning to serve, whether that means fighting in a military reserve unit or volunteering to shuttle supplies to those in need, even as the war has already claimed at least 1,800 lives and shows no signs of abating. On Tuesday, Israel's military expanded its mobilization of reservists to 360,000, according to the country's media, as it ramped up its retaliation for the surprise attacks.

Hamas' unprecedented attack on Israel and the war it launched has raised new questions about the influence of its main sponsor, Iran, and whether it had anything to do with the assault.

From Tel Aviv to Washington, however, no one is willing to directly blame Iran as they say they lack direct evidence. Tensions between the Islamic Republic and the West remain high over its rapidly advancing nuclear program. In Tehran, even its supreme leader has denied the country being involved while praising what he described as the "capable, smart and courageous" militants who killed more than 1,000 Israelis and for the first time took over 100 civilians and soldiers as hostages.

Residents in Gaza are facing an imminent loss of electricity as fuel supplies run dangerously low in the sealed-off territory. Israeli airstrikes left entire neighborhoods demolished Wednesday, and hospitals in the Gaza Strip are struggling to treat the injured with dwindling medical supplies.

The war, which has claimed more than 2,200 lives on both sides, is expected to escalate. The weekend attack that Hamas said was retribution for worsening conditions for Palestinians under Israeli occupation has inflamed Israel's determination to crush the group's hold in Gaza.

Israel's military said it has responded with artillery fire from the Golan Heights after munitions were launched toward territory it has occupied since 1967.

"Soldiers are responding with artillery and mortar shells toward the origin of the launching in Syria," an Israeli military statement said, on the fourth day of a war with Gaza-based Hamas militants that has sent regional tensions soaring.

The death toll from five days of ferocious fighting between Hamas and Israel rose sharply overnight as Israel kept up its bombardment of Gaza Wednesday after recovering the dead from the last communities near the border where Palestinian militants had been holed up.

In Israel, the death toll from Saturday's shock cross-border assault by Hamas militants rose to 1,200, making it the deadliest attack in the country's 75-year history, while Gaza officials reported more than 900 people killed as Israel pounded the territory with air strikes.

In mosques, football stadiums and towns across the Arab world, pro-Palestinian sentiment has surged after a shock Hamas attack on Israel, sparking a groundswell of solidarity for the Palestinians.

From Ramallah to Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad and Cairo, people have distributed sweets, danced and chanted prayers in support of the "resistance" to Israel's long-standing occupation of Palestinian land.

Syria boycotted a hearing at the United Nations' top court on Tuesday where the Netherlands and Canada accused Damascus of a years-long campaign of "institutionalized" torture against its own people.

The hearing was focused on a preliminary Dutch and Canadian request for the court to impose orders — known as provisional measures — on Syria to halt torture immediately to protect potential victims while their case accusing Damascus of breaching the torture convention proceeds through the International Court of Justice.