Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Chairman of the State Camp Benny Gantz on Wednesday agreed on the establishment of an emergency government and a war management cabinet.

The war management cabinet includes the prime minister, the defense minister and the chairman of the state camp. A place in the cabinet will be reserved for the chairman of the opposition if he joins.

During the war period, no bills or government decisions will be promoted that do not concern the conduct of the war.

Israel’s Emergency Unity Government will be sworn in Thursday at 6 p.m. local time.

-ABC News' Will Gretsky and Jordana Miller

Fighting is ongoing between Israeli forces and Hamas militants in southern Israel. Meanwhile, Israel and Hezbollah are openly exchanging fire at the northern border.

The Israel Defense Forces said the area of the Gaza Division has been declared a closed military zone and reiterated that entry is strictly prohibited.

The Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip remained closed for the second day in a row on Wednesday. The crossing was shut indefinitely on Tuesday after it was hit by Israeli warplanes on the Palestinian side three times on Monday and Tuesday.

The State Department expects that the number of confirmed dead Americans will rise on Wednesday, State Department spokesperson Matt Miller said on CNN.

"We continue to work through the list of unaccounted and find that, obviously, some of those we will locate or will report in, some of them we do find, unfortunately, they're deceased, and then others we are able to confirm are taken hostage,” Miller said. “It's a moving target all the time."

-ABC News' Shannon Crawford

A barrage of rockets has landed on the Israeli city of Ashkelon on Wednesday morning.

Ashkelon, with a population of over 100,000 people, has essentially been a ghost town since the start of the incursion from Hamas over the weekend.

There have been no immediate reports of injuries or deaths in the aftermath of the attack.

-ABC News’ Matt Gutman

In his first on-camera comments about Israel’s evacuation request for northern Gaza, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant urged Gaza residents to head south. He noted that Hamas will use them as "camouflage," “therefore we need to separate them."

"Those who want to save their life, please go south. We are going to destroy Hamas infrastructures, Hamas headquarters, Hamas military," he said.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who appeared at the press conference with Gallant, dodged ABC News' question about how Israel could end the Hamas terror threat without inevitably risking civilian lives. Austin called Israel's military "professional" and "disciplined."

Austin described how ISIS had also embedded themselves in civilian populations and how the anti-ISIS coalition "protected civilians and created corridors for humanitarian movement even in the midst of a pretty significant fight. So again, this is a professional force. It is well led, and I have every expectation that it will be disciplined."

Austin added, "I would tell you that in countering ISIS, I felt as if we were staring evil in the eye, it was truly evil. And what we've seen from Hamas, it takes that evil to another level."

-ABC News' Matt Seyler and Luis Martinez