DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — More than 45,000 Palestinians have now been killed in the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas militants, health officials in the embattled territory said Monday, as often-stalled ceasefire negotiations appeared to be gaining ground.

Qatar, Egypt and the United States have renewed efforts to broker a ceasefire deal in recent days, and Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Monday he believed negotiators are closer to a deal than at any time since the only previous truce, a week-long pause in November 2023 that saw 105 hostages released.

“We all estimate that an opportunity is being created following Hamas’s need to become more flexible, and I really hope we can advance to a practical stage in this process,” Katz said.

Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, a key Hamas ally, agreed to a ceasefire late last month.

Palestinian health officials updated the Gaza death toll to 45,028. They said 106,962 others have been wounded since the war began, and warned that the true toll is higher because thousands of bodies are buried under rubble or in areas that medics cannot access.

The ministry’s count does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, but it has said more than half of the fatalities are women and children. The Israeli military says it has killed more than 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.

The war is by far the deadliest round of fighting between Israel and Hamas, with the death toll amounting to roughly 2% of Gaza’s prewar population of about 2.3 million. More than 50 dead were brought to hospitals across the bombed-out territory over the past 24 hours, Gaza’s Health Ministry said.

Among the latest killed were 10 people, including a family of four, in an overnight Israeli strike in Gaza City’s eastern Shijaiyah neighborhood, Palestinian medics said.

Israel claims Hamas is responsible for the civilian death toll because it operates from within civilian areas in the densely populated Gaza Strip. Rights groups and Palestinians say Israel has failed to take sufficient precautions to avoid civilian deaths.

The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. Israel responded by heavy bombardment and a ground incursion into the Palestinian enclave. Around 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, at least a third believed to be dead. Most of the rest were released during a ceasefire last year.

A separate strike on a school on Sunday in the southern city of Khan Younis killed at least 13 people, including six children and two women, according to Nasser Hospital, where the bodies were taken. The hospital initially reported the strike had killed 16 but later said three bodies had been from a separate strike.