A tower block that is the base for international media in Gaza has been hit by an Israeli bombardment, causing it to collapse.
The strike - an hour after people were told to evacuate the building - came as fighting raged.
Earlier, 10 Palestinians from an extended family, including eight children, were killed by an Israeli strike in Gaza City, and one Israeli was killed in a rocket attack near Tel Aviv.
The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) posted footage of "the scene in the neighbourhood in Ramat Gan after a rocket from Gaza struck the area", saying they "will not let this terror go unanswered".
The Israel-Palestinian hostilities are now in their sixth day and diplomatic efforts to stop the bloodshed are intensifying.
In other developments:
• The UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet called for strict respect for international law and appealed to all sides to take steps to de-escalate, as Malaysia and Indonesia called on the UN Security Council to intervene and stop Israel's strikes on Gaza
• Egypt pushed for both sides to pause military activities from midnight on Friday, with Cairo leaning on Hamas, while the US and others tried to reach an agreement with Israel - but an Egyptian source said Israel turned down an Egyptian proposal for a one-year truce that Gaza's militant Hamas rulers had accepted
• Amid the fighting, Palestinians marked the start of the Nakba, or "catastrophe", an annual day of Palestinian grief marking the displacement of hundreds of thousands of refugees at the time of Israel's creation in 1948
• The UN Security Council is also set to meet on Sunday, after US diplomat Hady Amr arrived in the region on Friday as part of Washington's efforts to de-escalate the conflict, and Saudi Arabia called for foreign ministers of the world's largest body of Muslim nations to also meet
• The number killed rose overnight: 139 people have now died in Gaza, including 39 children and 22 women, according to Palestinian health officials, and nine - including two children and a soldier - on the Israeli side
• United Arab Emirates carriers Etihad Airways and flydubai cancelled flights to Tel Aviv, joining American and European airlines
• Iran's foreign minister cancelled a visit to Austria after the Austrian government flew the Israeli flag in Vienna in a show of solidarity
• In London, hundreds of people have gathered to march in solidarity with Palestinians, with former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn among those expected to speak
The al Jalaa Tower, which houses foreign media - Al Jazeera and the Associated Press news agency, among others - was hit twice by an Israeli bombardment at about 1.15pm.
There were no reports of fatalities.
AP's correspondent in Gaza, Fares Akram, said earlier that the building was the only place in the city he felt safe, as it was known to the Israelis as a media base.
AP's president and CEO Gary Pruitt said in a statement: "We are shocked and horrified that the Israeli military would target and destroy the building housing AP's bureau and other news organisations in Gaza. They have long known the location of our bureau and knew journalists were there. We received a warning that the building would be hit.
"We are seeking information from the Israeli government and are engaged with the US State Department to try to learn more."
A spokesperson for the IDF said: "The building contained civilian media offices, which the Hamas terror organization hides behind and uses as human shields. The Hamas terror organisation deliberately places military targets at the heart of densely populated civilian areas in the Gaza Strip."
Overnight on Saturday, the IDF said incoming rocket fire from Gaza had forced Israeli civilians to head to shelters to protect themselves for the fifth morning in a row, with the cities of Beersheba and Ashdod among those struck.
Israeli military forces said they carried out strikes on a Hamas military intelligence facility and a number of rocket launching sites in northern Gaza, an enclave controlled by the Islamist Palestinian group.
They added later they thwarted an attempt by Hamas to launch a drone armed with explosives from Gaza towards Israel.
An Israeli air strike killed eight children and two women from an extended family - the highest number of fatalities in a single hit since the Israel-Gaza conflict reignited earlier this week.
The 10 died when an airstrike hit a three storey house in a refugee camp in Gaza City, AP said, and a surviving widower told reporters that his wife and five children, only one of whom is known to have survived, had gone there to celebrate the Eid al Fitr holiday with relatives.
Soon after, Hamas said it fired multiple rockets at southern Israel in response.
A total of 15 Palestinians were killed by Israeli bombardment overnight, according to Palestinian medics on Saturday.
Palestinians militants fired about 200 rockets at Israeli cities during the same period, and Israel's military said its aircraft struck apartments that belonged to Hamas militants as well as rocket launch sites.
Ms Bachelet warned the firing of large numbers of indiscriminate rockets by Palestinian armed groups into densely populated Israeli areas amounts to war crimes - and there were concerns some attacks by the Israeli Defence Forces that have targeted "civilian objects" do not meet the requirements to be considered as military objectives under humanitarian law.
She said: "Rather than seeking to calm tensions, inflammatory rhetoric from leaders on all sides appears to be seeking to excite tensions rather than to calm them.
"I urge both sides to ensure strict respect for their obligations under international law. Israel, as the occupying power, also has a duty to ensure unimpeded access to humanitarian assistance to the Gaza strip. Those found to be responsible for violations must be held to account."
The Nabka, which has fallen on Saturday, is one of the most sombre dates of protest in the Palestinian calendar. It marks the day after the creation of the state of Israel on 14 May 1948, a move that led to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fleeing or being expelled from the country.
Anti-Israeli protests erupted in the occupied West Bank on Friday, prompting Israeli forces to open fire, killing 11 people.
In addition, pro-Palestinian demonstrations took place at Israel's borders with neighbouring Jordan and Lebanon, while three rockets were reportedly fired towards Israel from Syria.
There were fears that the conflict may spread as hundreds of people took part in the funeral of a Hezbollah fighter who was shot dead along the Lebanon-Israel border during a rally denouncing Israeli airstrikes on Gaza.
As well as in London, demonstrations against the Israeli bombing took place in cities across the world, including in Paris, Brussels, Baghdad and Amman.
Counter protests also took place.
The US embassy in Jerusalem said Hady Amr's aim after he arrived in Israel was "to reinforce the need to work towards a sustainable calm".
As well as Egypt, Qatar, Jordan and the United Nations are also important players in the negotiations.
Diplomats have already held a number of closed-door sessions since the bombardments by both sides began on Monday.
The violence was sparked by tensions in Jerusalem over efforts by Jewish settlers to evict a number of Palestinian families from their homes in an east Jerusalem neighbourhood, and by clashes between Israeli police and Palestinians at a revered mosque in the Old City.
On Friday night, online video showed young Jewish nationalists firing pistols as they traded volleys of stones with Palestinians in the disputed Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood.
The Israel's military said that they had been going after a network of tunnels used by Hamas.
The IDF says Hamas and Islamic Jihad, a fellow Palestinian militant group, have fired more than 2,000 rockets from Gaza towards Israel since the start of the hostilities - an unprecedented volume of strikes.
More than 400 rockets are said to have fallen short into Gaza, while many more were blasted out of the sky by Israeli air defence systems. However, some did impact.
For its part, the Israeli military said they have hit some 1,000 targets in Gaza, including rocket launch sites, individual commanders and the tunnel network.
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2021-05-15 14:05:18Z
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