At least 274 Palestinians were killed in the Israeli air and ground raid that rescued four hostages held by Hamas, Gaza’s Health Ministry has said.

It added that around 700 other people were injured in Saturday’s operation.

The complex assault deep into central Gaza was the largest rescue operation since October 7, when Hamas and other militants stormed across the border into Israel, killing some 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostage.

Israel launched a massive offensive in response that has so far killed more than 36,700 Palestinians, according to the ministry, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its counts.

Israelis celebrated the return of Noa Argamani, 26; Almog Meir Jan, 22; Andrey Kozlov, 27; and Shlomi Ziv, 41, after Israeli forces raided two locations at once while under fire on Saturday.

Ms Argamani had been one of the most widely recognised hostages after being taken, like the three others, from a music festival. The video of her abduction showed her seated between two men on a motorcycle as she screamed “Don’t kill me”.

Her mother, Liora, has brain cancer and had released a video pleading to see her daughter. Israel’s Channel 13 said Ms Argamani was taken to the hospital where her mother is being treated.

In Gaza, medics described scenes of horror and chaos as those injured in the operation to free the hostages poured into nearby hospitals that were already struggling to treat the wounded from days of heavy Israeli strikes in the area.

Karin Huster of Doctors Without Borders, an international charity working in the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, said: “We had the gamut of war wounds, trauma wounds, from amputations to eviscerations to trauma, to TBIs (traumatic brain injuries), fractures, and obviously, big burns.

“Kids completely grey or white from the shock, burnt, screaming for their parents. Many of them are not screaming because they are in shock.”

The Israeli military said it had attacked “threats to our forces in the area”, and that a special forces officer was killed in the rescue operation.