Israel has now lost 719 people to coronavirus, the Health Ministry reported Wednesday, saying that dozens of fatalities in care homes for the elderly are missing from its data.
The ministry said it is looking into why the deaths of at least 53 people in care homes in July and August have not been recorded in the statistics on the pandemic.
The absence of the data suggests that the death toll for the country could be higher than reported.
According to the ministry, 1,644 people in Israel were diagnosed with COVID-19 on Tuesday, showing a 6.2% infection rate for the 26,681 tests conducted.
Out of the 23,779 patients currently battling the pathogen, 401 are in serious condition, with 118 connected to ventilators.
At least 72,498 people have so far recovered from the disease.
On Tuesday, Israel's coronavirus czar Prof. Ronni Gamzu warned that the country may have to reimpose severe restrictions during the spate of Jewish High Holidays that begins next month.
"We have taken a lot of restrictive measures but we are still in the second wave with a very active spread, not only in the cities classified as 'red' but also in the whole country," said Gamzu.
He warned that the next three weeks would be "decisive" in deciding whether to reimpose a general lockdown on the population, which would likely come between September 18 to October 11.
The professor, however, promised to "do everything to avoid" such measures.