Dozens of Palestinians, including children and other civilians, have also been wounded in the raids, which were launched after an anti-tank missile fired by a Hamas squad hit an Israeli school bus close to the border on Thursday, seriously injuring a 16-year-old boy.

Just minutes earlier, dozens of schoolchildren had got off the bus at a local kibbutz. The missile was one of about 50 the Israeli army said had been fired across the border on Thursday.

Immediately after the attack, Israeli forces shelled the border area from which the missile had been fired, killing a 50-year-old man and wounding five others, including a young child.

Within hours, a series of air raids had hit targets across Gaza, killing three more people in Rafah on the Egyptian border, a centre of the arms smuggling operations run by Hamas. A further body was pulled from the ruins of the site yesterday.

Despite Hamas calling a ceasefire from armed groups operating out of its territory late on Thursday, Israeli raids continued overnight and rocket attacks back across the border resumed in the morning.