The toll includes at least 43 deaths over the past 24 hours, a ministry statement said.
Another 86,969 have been wounded since the war began on 7 October, it added.
Heavy fighting between Israeli occupation forces and Palestinian resistance fighters continued in northern and southern Gaza on Sunday with at least six civilians, including children, killed in an Israeli strike on a home in Rafah, WAFA news agency reported.
Israeli artillery attacks also injured many people further south in Rafah, while air raids targeted several towns east of Khan Younis.
Intensifying assaults in north
Israel advanced further into northern Gaza on Sunday.
In Beit Lahiya, the Indonesian Field Hospital received a critically wounded child and her father after their house was hit in the area.
Israeli occupation forces also targeted another home in Jabalia and Gaza City’s Al-Darraj neighbourhood.
In Shujayea, Israeli forces’ ground incursion intensifies as it enters its fourth day. Palestinians there say they are trapped and surrounded by artillery shelling and air attacks, Al Jazeera reported.
According to the UN agency UNRWA, 65,000 Palestinians have been able to evacuate from Shujayea, but there are still many trapped.
Israeli troops are also encountering fierce resistance from Palestinian fighters, with dozens of attacks, including RPG fire, explosive devices, and sniper attacks as well as some close-quarters combat, the Israeli army admitted.
Two Israeli soldiers were killed and another two were seriously wounded in separate incidents in Shujayea over the weekend.
The Israeli army expects the operation in the area to not take at least a few weeks, according to Israeli media.
Expanding buffer zone
Israeli Channel 12 reported that the Israeli army is expanding the buffer zone along 14 kilometres of the Philadelphia axis, along the borders with Egypt, to preserve what it described as its achievements in Rafah, south of Gaza.
It said that Israel will construct a new Rafah crossing which is planned to be located near Karem Abu Salem.
No end in sight
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu again promised to accomplish all his war aims, including defeating Hamas and bringing home Israeli captives from Gaza.
“To all those who doubt the achievement of these goals, I reiterate: there is no substitute for victory,” Netanyahu said at a weekly government meeting.
“We will not end the war until we achieve all our objectives,” he emphasized.
Netanyahu also claimed that Israel backs the captives release deal that US President Joe Biden presented on 31 May, blaming Hamas for blocking the deal, despite the resistance group backing the plan and requesting guarantees for its implementation.
However, Netanyahu rejected the proposal presented by Biden as an Israeli roadmap, saying he would only accept a "partial" deal that would free "some" of the captives, but would not end the 8-month-long war.
Mediators’ efforts continue
Washington has recently presented a new draft of the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas to bridge the points of contention, according to a recent report by Axios.
The main point of disagreement between the parties is Article 8, which outlines the negotiation structure between Israel and Hamas that should take part in the first phase of the deal to reach a sustainable end to the war, while also reaching an agreement on releasing Israeli captives and Palestinian detainees held extrajudicially by Israel.
Hamas argues that these negotiations should be issue-specific, focusing on the number of captives and how many Palestinian detainees will be exchanged for them.
Israel wants to raise broader issues, such as the demilitarization of Gaza and the ruling structure of the strip after the war.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh discussed on Saturday in a phone call with Egyptian General Intelligence Chief Abbas Kamel the course of ongoing negotiations to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza, according to a press statement issued by Hamas.
Furthermore, the Head of Turkish Intelligence Ibrahim Kalin has discussed in a phone call with Haniyeh the efforts to reach a ceasefire in Gaza, according to the Walla news website.
On Saturday, Osama Hamdan, a Hamas official based in Lebanon, confirmed that the group had received the latest proposal on 24 June, but that it included "nothing new."
"We can say there is no real progress in the negotiations to stop the Israeli aggression so far," he said at a press conference.
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