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Israel ended its ceasefire with Hamas by launching a surprise bombardment on March 18, and has carried out daily waves of strikes. Ground forces expanded a buffer zone and encircled the southern city of Rafah, and now control around 50% of the territory.

Israel has also sealed off Gaza’s 2 million Palestinians from all imports, including food and medicine, for nearly 60 days. Aid groups say supplies will soon run out and that thousands of children are malnourished.

The overall death toll includes nearly 700 bodies for which the documentation process was recently completed, the ministry said in its latest update. The daily toll includes bodies retrieved from the rubble after earlier strikes.

Israeli strikes killed another 23 people after the ministry's update.

Eight of them, including three children and two women, were killed in a strike on a tent in the southern city of Khan Younis, according to Nasser Hospital. A strike in the central city of Deir al-Balah killed four people, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, and another on a tent there killed four children and a man, the hospital said. A strike hit a coffee shop near the entrance to the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, killing at least six people, according to al-Awda and al-Aqsa hospitals.

“My son, my son, why did you go out, my son?” one man, Eyad Omar, said in Deir al-Balah as he mourned.

Israeli authorities say the renewed offensive and tightened blockade are aimed at pressuring Hamas to release hostages abducted in its attack on Oct. 7, 2023, that triggered the war. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to continue the war until Hamas is destroyed or disarmed and all the hostages are returned.

Hamas has said that it will only release the remaining 59 hostages — 24 believed to be alive — in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, a lasting ceasefire and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, as called for in the now-defunct ceasefire reached in January.

Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the Oct. 7 attack and took 251 people hostage. Most have since been released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.

Gaza's Health Ministry says women and children make up most of the Palestinian deaths, but doesn't say how many were militants or civilians. It says another 117,600 people have been wounded in the war.

The overall tally includes 2,151 dead and 5,598 wounded since Israel resumed the war last month.

Israel says it has killed around 20,000 militants, without providing evidence. The military says it tries to avoid harming civilians and it blames Hamas for their deaths because the militants operate in densely populated areas.

Israel's offensive has destroyed vast parts of Gaza and displaced around 90% of its population, leaving hundreds of thousands of people sheltering in squalid tent camps or bombed-out buildings.

Also on Sunday, Israeli jets struck Beirut’s southern suburbs after issuing a warning about an hour earlier, marking the third Israeli strike on the area since a ceasefire took effect in late November.

In a statement following the strike, the Israeli military said it targeted a precision-guided missile storage facility for the militant Hezbollah group. It added that storing such equipment is a violation of the agreement reached to end the Israel-Hezbollah war.

A huge plume of smoke billowed over the area after the strike, which hit what looked like a metal tent situated between two buildings with three bombs, according to an Associated Press photographer on the ground and footage circulating on social media. The photographer saw two burned and destroyed trucks inside the hangar. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

In the warning, the Israeli military said it was targeting Hezbollah facilities in the Hadath area and urged residents to move at least 300 yards from the site before the strike. Two warning strikes followed.

Fighter jets were heard over parts of the Lebanese capital before the strike near the Al-Jamous neighborhood, where gunfire was shot into the air to warn residents and urge them to evacuate, as families fled in panic.

During the last Israel-Hezbollah war, Israeli drones and fighter jets regularly pounded the southern suburbs, where Hezbollah has wide influence and support. Israel views the area, where it has assassinated several of Hezbollah’s top leaders, including chief Hassan Nasrallah, as a militant stronghold and accuses the group of storing weapons there.

President Joseph Aoun condemned the Israeli strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs, calling on the United States and France, as guarantors of the ceasefire, to “assume their responsibilities” and pressure Israel to halt its attacks. He warned that Israel’s continued actions “undermine stability” and risk exposing the region to serious security threats.

U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis posted on X that the latest Israeli strike “generated panic and fear of renewed violence among those desperate for a return to normalcy.” She urged all sides to halt any actions that could further undermine the ceasefire understanding and the implementation of the U.N. resolution that ended the war.