Fourteen people were killed in a strike that hit the Al-Fara family home, and a separate raid killed another six, said agency spokesman Mahmoud Bassal.

Bassal said the 14 included nine children under the age of 16.

"The rocket fell next to us, and we were buried under the rubble. My children and sister were killed," Umm al-Ameer al-Fara who survived the strike told AFP.

Next to her, Ihsan al-Fara said there were only "women and children" and no militants in the house.

"My son Issa was killed, he was five years old... All my children were injured," she added.

Relatives combed through their home destroyed following the strike, while others overlooked a large crater filled with household debris, including mattresses and shattered furniture.

AFP photographs showed relatives at the European hospital in Khan Younis mourning the deaths of children, the bodies of several of them wrapped in white shrouds.

Israel's year-long war on Gaza has killed at least 42,847 people, mostly women and children, according to the Palestinian territory's health ministry, figures the UN says are reliable.

Vast swathes of Gaza have been reduced to rubble amid Israel's massive air and ground invasion, displacing almost all of its civilian population of 2.4 million people at least once in the past year.

*This story was edited by Ahram Online.