Israeli attacks in Gaza have killed 283 people and injured 814 in the past 24 hours alone, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

The vast majority of those casualties — 274 killed and 698 injured — were caused by Israeli’s operation in Nuseirat, the ministry said. Israeli forces freed four captives during the operation.

The latest casualties in Gaza bring the total toll there since October 7 to 37,084 killed and 84,494 injured, according to the ministry.

Israeli forces claimed to have rescued four hostages held by Hamas since October in a raid in Gaza on Saturday that killed more than 200 people, one of the single bloodiest Israeli assaults of the eight-month-old war.

The hostage rescue operation and an intense accompanying air assault took place in central Gaza’s al-Nuseirat, a densely built-up and often embattled area in the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

An Israeli military spokesperson said the operation took place in the heart of a residential neighbourhood in Nuseirat where Hamas had allegedly kept the hostages in two separate apartment blocks. Israel’s forces came under intense fire during the assault and responded by firing “from the air and from the street,” the spokesperson, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said.

Meanwhile, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) says Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza is a “nightmare”, and Al-Aqsa and Nasser hospitals are treating an “overwhelming number of severely injured patients, many of whom are women and children”, after the Israeli attack on Nuseirat.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said Saturday that the “resistance will continue” after deadly fighting in a central Gaza refugee camp where Israel had mounted a hostage rescue operation.

“Our people will not surrender, and the resistance will continue to defend our rights in the face of this criminal enemy,” Haniyeh said in a statement, after the Hamas-run government media office reported 210 people killed in Nuseirat camp.