When Hezbollah fired a massive barrage of rockets into northern Israel on Wednesday morning, Meron Bareket said his whole house shook.

"It was kind of a showstopper," Bareket told ABC News. "You just jumped out of your seat."

He lives in Kibbutz Amiad, about 10 miles from the Lebanon border.

Bareket said he quickly ran with his two daughters, ages 2 and 5, to their shelter.

He said he’s fearful the situation on Israel’s northern border "will become a real war."

Bareket said he struggles to explain the situation to his young daughters who have become so accustomed to the sounds and sights of war that they now can differentiate between an F-15 and an F-16 fighter jet when an aircraft flies overhead.

"They point to the sky and ask me if it's safe to go out, and I don't know," he said. "Is it?"

-ABC News' Tom Soufi Burridge, Dana Savir, Tomer Slutzky and Hugo Leenhardt

More than 210 rockets have been fired from Lebanon toward northern Israel since Wednesday morning, the Israel Defense Forces said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is conducting a security situation assessment Wednesday evening, the prime minister's office said.

-ABC News’ Dana Savir, Bruno Nota and Yael Benaya

National security adviser Jake Sullivan said the U.S. will work with Egypt and Qatar to "bridge final gaps" on cease-fire negotiations that are consistent with President Joe Biden’s May 31 speech and consistent with the U.N. Security Council Resolution.

"Many of the proposed changes are minor and not unanticipated, others differ more substantively from what was outlined in the U.N. Security Council resolution," Sullivan told reporters.

Sullivan said their goal is "to bring this process to a conclusion."

"Our view is that the time for haggling is over, it's time for a cease-fire to begin and for the hostages to come home," he said.

-ABC News’ Justin Ryan Gomez

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday weighed in on Hamas’ official response to the cease-fire proposal, stressing that a deal is the "single, most effective way" to alleviate civilian suffering and avoid escalation in the region.

“Hamas has proposed numerous changes to the proposal that is on the table," Blinken said at a news conference in Qatar with Qatari officials. "We discussed those changes with Egyptian colleagues, and today with the prime minister [of Qatar]. Some of the changes are workable, some are not."

"Here, in a nutshell is where we stand," Blinken said. "Hamas could have answered with a single word: yes. Instead, Hamas waited nearly two weeks and then proposed more changes, a number of which go beyond positions it had previously taken and accepted."

Blinken said that as a result "the war Hamas started will go on," but that "in the days ahead, we’re going to continue to push on an urgent basis" to "try to close this deal."

Blinken noted that almost everyone he’s spoken with during his eight trips to the Middle East since Oct. 7 made clear they wanted to see a negotiated solution to the conflict.

"I cannot speak for Hamas or answer for Hamas and ultimately, it may not be the path Hamas wants to pursue. But Hamas cannot and will not be allowed to decide the future for this region and its people," he said.

Blinken was pressed on whether the deal was salvageable and whether more pressure needed to be applied to Israel. The secretary declined to characterize Hamas’ response as a rejection, as Israeli officials have, but expressed significant skepticism.

"At some point in a negotiation, and this has gone back and forth for a long time, you get to a point where if one side continues to change its demands, including making demands and insisting on changes for things that it already accepted, you have to question whether they’re proceeding in good faith or not," he said.

Blinken went on to say he believes the gaps are bridgeable, but "it doesn’t mean they will be bridged" because it depends "on people saying yes."

"Hamas had this for 12 days. ... People were suffering throughout those 12 days. The longer this goes on, the more people will suffer," he asserted. "It’s time for the haggling to stop."

Blinken was also adamant that Israel was not the problem.

"Look, Israel accepted the proposal as it was and as it is. Hamas didn’t. So I think it’s pretty clear what needs to happen," he said.

-ABC News’ Shannon Crawford