Israel has revised down the death toll from last month’s Hamas attacks in southern Israel from 1,400 to about 1,200, according to a foreign ministry spokesman.

“This is an updated estimate,” ministry spokesman Lior Haiat told AFP. “It includes foreign workers and other foreign nationalities just from the October 7 attack,” he said.

He said the toll was not “final” and “might change” when all the bodies have been identified.

But in an unrelated statement on Friday that was critical of the UN’s cultural agency Unesco, Haiat said Hamas murdered “about 1,200 people”. Haiat separately confirmed the new toll in a statement to AFP.