Israeli air strikes kill eight children and flatten Gaza building housing international media outlets

Palestinian protestors clashed with Israeli forces in the West Bank as Israeli fighter jets struck several sites in the densely populated Gaza Strip.

One strike on a three-storey building in the Shati refugee camp killed 10 members of an extended family - two mothers and their four children each. Israel's army said the building was used by senior Hamas officials.

Mohammed al-Hadidi said he had lost most of his family in the strike.

"What did they do to deserve this? We're civilians," said the devastated father, whose five-month-old baby was also wounded in the explosion.

"They are striking our children - children - without prior warning."

Palestinian militants responded with volleys of rockets into Israel, killing a man near Tel Aviv.

Balls of flame thrust into the sky on Saturday afternoon as Israel's air force flattened a 13-floor Gaza building housing Qatar-based Al Jazeera and the Associated Press news agency, after giving a warning to evacuate.

"It is clear that those who are waging this war do not only want to spread destruction and death in Gaza, but also to silence media that are witnessing, documenting and reporting the truth," Al Jazeera's Al-Quds (Jerusalem) bureau chief, Walid al-Omari, told AFP.

AP president and chief executive Gary Pruitt said he was "shocked and horrified" by the attack, and called on the Israeli government to provide evidence for their claim that Hamas military intelligence assets were in the same building.

"AP’s bureau has been in this building for 15 years. We have had no indication Hamas was in the building or active in the building," Mr Pruitt said in a statement.

"This is something we actively check to the best of our ability. We would never knowingly put our journalists at risk."

At least 150 Palestinians, including 41 children and 23 women, have been martyred and over 1,000 others injured in Gaza in the Israeli regime's latest round of aggression that began in last week.