AFP correspondents witnessed more than 10 air strikes that hit several houses near the frontier.

"Twelve martyrs and dozens of wounded, including women and children, were recovered from under the rubble when a house and a mosque were targeted hundreds of metres from Kuwaiti hospital," the ministry said in a statement.

AFP video footage showed a thick plume of smoke and blaze of fire rising amid massive explosions that rocked the border area.

Israel continued its withering air and land campaign against Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, on the 75th day of the war that erupted after a bloody attack by Hamas militants on Israel on October 7.

The Hamas attack killed about 1,140 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on the latest official Israeli figures.

In Israel's retaliatory military offensive at least 19,667 people, mostly women and children, have been killed in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Palestinian territory.