The Hamas-run health ministry Tuesday said in a post on Telegram that at least 404 people were martyred by the Israeli air strikes. On its Whatsapp channel, it gives a slightly higher figure of 413.
The ministry adds that some victims are still trapped under the rubble.
Munir al-Barsh, the ministry's director general, says more than 660 injured people arrived at hospitals.
He also says at least 326 people were martyred, and "many victims are still under the rubble".
An earlier update from the ministry said at least 330 people died. He says most of the victims are women and children. There is a severe shortage of medical facilities, with 25 out of 38 hospitals out of service, al-Barsh says. "We are in dire need of field hospitals, beds, and operating rooms to deal with the large number of injuries and victims of the aggression," al-Barsh adds.
Israel on Tuesday unleashed its most intense strikes on the Gaza Strip since a January ceasefire as Hamas accused Israeli PM Netanyahu of deciding to "resume war" after a deadlock on extending the truce.
The White House confirmed that Israel consulted US President Donald Trump's administration before launching the wave of strikes, which rescuers said killed mostly women, children and elderly.
Netanyahu's office said the operation was ordered after "Hamas's repeated refusal to release our hostages, as well as its rejection of all of the proposals it has received from US Presidential Envoy Steve Witkoff and from the mediators." Israel will, from now on, act against Hamas with increasing military strength," said the statement.
TV footages showed people rushing stretchers with injured people, including young children, to the Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis. Bodies covered with white sheets were also taken to the hospital's mortuary.
Mohammed Jarghoun, 36, was sleeping in a tent near his destroyed house in Khan Yunis when he was woken by huge blasts. "I thought they were dreams and nightmares, but I saw a fire in my relatives' house. More than twenty martyrs and wounded, most of them children and women."
UN chief Antonio Guterres voiced shock Tuesday after hundreds were killed in the most intense Israeli airstrikes in Gaza since a fragile ceasefire took effect in January. "The secretary-general is shocked by the Israeli airstrikes in Gaza," UN spokesman Rolando Gomez told a press briefing in Geneva.
"He strongly appeals for the ceasefire to be respected, for unimpeded humanitarian assistance to be re-established, and for the remaining hostages to be released unconditionally." UN rights chief Volker Turk said he was horrified by the strikes. "This will add tragedy onto tragedy," he said in a statement.
"This nightmare must end immediately," Turk said, adding that "the last 18 months of violence have made abundantly clear that there is no military path out of this crisis".
Hamas on Tuesday named the head of its government in the Gaza Strip, Essam al-Dalis, among a list of officials it said were killed in a wave of Israeli strikes on the Palestinian territory.
"These leaders, along with their families, were martyred after being directly targeted by the Zionist occupation forces' aircraft," said the Hamas statement, which also named interior ministry head Mahmud Abu Watfa and Bahjat Abu Sultan, director-general of the internal security service, among those killed.
Dalis, who was a member of Hamas's political bureau in Gaza, was elected to the movement's Gaza leadership in March 2021 and became the head of its administration in June of that year.
In November 2023, Israel claimed to have bombed a Hamas structure in which Dalis was present with other leaders who were killed.
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