After purging files from repo still getting "Your push to this repository would cause it to exceed the size limit of 9.8 GB so it has been rejected"

I have been trying to reduce the size of my repo following the steps from here:

… but when pushing to remote (as in step 4.) I still get the message:

git push origin --force ‘refs/heads/master’
Enumerating objects: 832, done.
Counting objects: 100% (832/832), done.
Delta compression using up to 16 threads
Compressing objects: 100% (57/57), done.
Writing objects: 100% (36540/36540), 257.35 MiB | 1.25 MiB/s, done.
Total 36540 (delta 807), reused 775 (delta 775), pack-reused 35708
remote: Resolving deltas: 100% (30208/30208), done.
remote: GitLab: Your push to this repository has been rejected because it would exceed storage limits. Please contact your GitLab administrator for more information.

Checking the (local) repository size with “du -sh” gives 263 MB. What am I missing here?