Israeli tanks and armoured vehicles surrounded a hospital in Gaza's Khan Yunis on Tuesday, witnesses said, as the Palestinian Red Crescent reported another facility was "out of service" due to military operations.
Witnesses at Nasser Hospital, where thousands of displaced Palestinians have sought refuge from the fighting, told AFP that shots were fired at the sprawling complex in the southern city, but no raid was as yet taking place.
Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry said Israeli troops were shooting and firing "shells and (conducting) violent raids in its surroundings in preparation for its storming".
"Thousands of displaced people are still inside the hospital," the ministry said. "They do not have sufficient quantities of drinking water, food and infant formula, and their lives are in danger."
The Israeli army did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment.
For the past nine days, Israeli troops have been involved in heavy fighting in and around Gaza City's Al-Shifa Hospital, the territory's biggest. They claim to have killed 170 Palestinian militants there and arrested hundreds of others.
The Palestinian Red Crescent on Tuesday said that Al-Amal Hospital, near Nasser in Khan Yunis, was "out of service" after Israeli forces evacuated it and blocked the entrance.
The medical organisation said in a statement that "the international community failed to provide the necessary protection" for staff, patients and displaced Gazans sheltering at Al-Amal.
The Red Crescent said one patient and one of its volunteers were killed on Sunday by Israeli fire.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said the hospital has been turned into "a battleground when it should be a sanctuary".
"The forced closure of Al-Amal Hospital, one of the few remaining medical facilities in the south, has profound implications, leaving countless lives at risk," the IFRC said in a statement.
"Marked clearly with the red crescent emblem, Al-Amal Hospital is protected under International Humanitarian Law."
The Israeli military, which on Monday reported killing about 20 fighters around Al-Amal Hospital, did not comment on the statements.
US rejects Hamas plea to halt Gaza airdrops as fighting rages on
The United States said Tuesday it would continue airdrops of aid to besieged Gaza, despite pleas from Hamas to stop the practice after it said 18 people had died trying to reach food packages.
Hamas demanded that its enemy Israel instead allow more aid trucks to enter the war-torn territory, which the United Nations has warned is on the brink of a "man-made famine" after nearly six months of war.
Fighting raged unabated on Tuesday, a day after the UN Security Council passed its first resolution calling for an "immediate ceasefire" and urging the release of the roughly 130 hostages Israel says remain in Gaza, including 34 captives who are presumed dead.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said 12 people including some children were killed when an air strike hit a displacement camp late on Tuesday near the southern city of Khan Yunis.
And Israeli forces were continuing an assault on Gaza City's largest hospital, and their forces have surrounded two other medical facilities in Khan Yunis.
The Palestinian Red Crescent warned that thousands were trapped in the Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis and "their lives are in danger".
The war sparked by Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel has shattered Gaza's infrastructure and aid agencies say all of its 2.4 million people are now in need of humanitarian help.
Six people were killed in stampedes and 12 others drowned off the territory's Mediterranean coast trying to salvage aid packages, the Hamas government and the Swiss-based Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said.
"People are dying just to get a can of tuna," Gaza resident Mohamad al-Sabaawi told AFP, holding a can in his hand after a scramble over an aid package.
- 'Imminent famine' -
Hamas in a statement called for "an immediate end to airdrop operations" and "the immediate and rapid opening of land crossings".
The UN children's fund, UNICEF, said vastly more aid must be rushed into Gaza by road rather than air or sea to avert an "imminent famine".
UNICEF spokesman James Elder pointed out that the necessary help was "a matter of kilometres away" in aid-filled trucks waiting across Gaza's southern border with Egypt.
The US National Security Council said in a statement later they would continue trying to get aid in on the road.
But the statement added that airdrops were "one of the many ways that we are helping to provide desperately needed aid to Palestinians in Gaza, and we will continue to do so".
AFPTV footage showed crowds rushing towards aid packages on Tuesday parachuting from planes sent by Jordan, Egypt, the UAE and Germany.
- 'Political isolation' -
Israeli troops meanwhile battled Hamas with no sign of a let-up, with the military saying its jets had struck more than 60 targets, including tunnels and buildings "in which armed terrorists were identified".
The Security Council resolution passed Monday demanded a ceasefire for the ongoing Muslim holy month of Ramadan that should lead to a "lasting" truce.
Israel's top ally the United States, which had blocked previous resolutions, abstained from the vote, prompting Israel to cancel a planned visit by senior officials.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said Israel was experiencing "unprecedented political isolation" and losing US "protection" at the Security Council.
Washington has baulked at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's determination to launch an assault on Rafah, a southern city where most of Gaza's population is now sheltering.
The US has also expressed increasing concern over the humanitarian toll.
Ahead of a meeting with his Israeli counterpart, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that in Gaza "the number of civilian casualties is far too high, and the amount of humanitarian aid is far too low".
- Talks 'ongoing' -
The October 7 attack resulted in about 1,160 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel's retaliatory campaign against Hamas has killed at least 32,414 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to the territory's health ministry.
Officials from the two sides are in indirect mediated talks in Qatar aimed at sealing a ceasefire and a hostage release.
But both Hamas and Netanyahu said the talks were failing and blamed each other.
Qatari foreign ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari said on Tuesday the talks were "ongoing", adding there had been no "development that would lead to thinking that one of the teams has pulled out of the negotiations".
- Battles near hospitals -
On the ground in Gaza, dozens of Israeli tanks and armoured vehicles surrounded the Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, where thousands of displaced people have sought refuge, witnesses said.
The health ministry said shots were fired around the sprawling complex, but no raid had yet taken place.
At Gaza City's Al-Shifa Hospital, the territory's largest, Israeli troops have been engaged in heavy fighting for nine days. Israel claims to have killed 170 Palestinian militants and arrested hundreds.
On Monday, the Israeli military reported killing about 20 fighters in a day around Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Yunis, in combat and air strikes.
Israel has labelled its action "precise operational activities" and said it had taken care to avoid harm to civilians, but aid agencies have voiced concern for non-combatants caught up in the fighting.
Palestinians living near Al-Shifa have reported corpses in the streets, constant bombardment and the rounding up of men who are stripped to their underwear and questioned.
Israeli hostage in Gaza dead
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One of the Israeli hostages kidnapped during the October 7 Hamas attack has been killed and his body is being held in Gaza, two groups representing hostage families said Tuesday.
Uriel Baruch, 35, a father of two, was taken from the Supernova music festival, where 364 people were killed by Hamas militants during the unprecedented attack that sparked the war in Gaza.
The Israeli army told his family that his body was being held in Gaza, the Tikva Forum hostages group said in a statement.
Another group, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, also said Baruch had been killed.
It described the techno fan, whose children are aged eight and five, as "a joyful person who loved life and loved to have fun".
"Uriel's body is still being held captive by Hamas," it added.
Militants seized 253 Israeli and foreign hostages during the October 7 attack on Israel that triggered the war and resulted in the deaths of around 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
Around 100 hostages were released during a truce at the end of November, some in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
Israel believes around 130 captives remain in Gaza, including 34 presumed dead.