Is­raeli forces raid­ed Gaza’s largest hos­pi­tal ear­ly Wednes­day, where hun­dreds of pa­tients, in­clud­ing new­borns, have been strand­ed with dwin­dling sup­plies and no elec­tric­i­ty, as the army ex­tend­ed its con­trol across Gaza City and the north.

Shi­fa Hos­pi­tal has be­come a sym­bol of the wide­spread suf­fer­ing of Pales­tin­ian civil­ians dur­ing the war be­tween Is­rael and Hamas, which erupt­ed af­ter the mil­i­tant group killed some 1,200 peo­ple and seized around 240 cap­tives in a sur­prise Oct. 7 at­tack in­to south­ern Is­rael.

The hos­pi­tal is al­so at the heart of clash­ing nar­ra­tives over who is to blame for the thou­sands of deaths and wide­spread de­struc­tion in the be­sieged ter­ri­to­ry. Is­rael ac­cus­es Hamas of us­ing Pales­tini­ans as hu­man shields, while Pales­tini­ans and rights groups say Is­rael has reck­less­ly en­dan­gered civil­ians as it seeks to erad­i­cate the group.

Mo­hammed Za­qout, the di­rec­tor of hos­pi­tals in Gaza, said Is­raeli tanks were in­side the med­ical com­pound and that sol­diers had en­tered build­ings, in­clud­ing the emer­gency and surgery de­part­ments, which house in­ten­sive care units. It was not clear if he was speak­ing from in­side the com­pound.

“The oc­cu­pa­tion forces stormed the build­ings,” he said an­gri­ly over the phone. He said the pa­tients, in­clud­ing chil­dren, are ter­ri­fied. “They are scream­ing. It’s a very ter­ri­fy­ing sit­u­a­tion ... we can do noth­ing for the pa­tients but pray.”

The Is­raeli mil­i­tary said it was car­ry­ing out a “pre­cise and tar­get­ed op­er­a­tion against Hamas in a spec­i­fied area in the Shi­fa Hos­pi­tal.” It said the sol­diers were ac­com­pa­nied by med­ical teams and had brought med­ical sup­plies and ba­by food as well as in­cu­ba­tors and oth­er equip­ment.

Is­rael says Hamas has a mas­sive com­mand cen­ter in­side and be­neath Shi­fa, but has not pro­vid­ed vi­su­al ev­i­dence, while Hamas and the hos­pi­tal staff have re­peat­ed­ly de­nied the al­le­ga­tions.

Hours be­fore the raid, the Unit­ed States said its own in­tel­li­gence in­di­cat­ed mil­i­tants have used Shi­fa and oth­er hos­pi­tals — and tun­nels be­neath them — to sup­port mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions and hold hostages.

The Is­raeli mil­i­tary said that the forces raid­ing Shi­fa are al­so search­ing for hostages. The plight of the cap­tives, who in­clude men, women and chil­dren, has gal­va­nized Is­raeli sup­port for the war, and fam­i­lies and sup­port­ers of the hostages are hold­ing a protest march from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Two and a half weeks af­ter send­ing tanks and ground troops in­to north­ern Gaza, Is­raeli forces al­so claimed con­trol of sev­er­al key build­ings and a down­town neigh­bour­hood in Gaza City.

A TRICK­LE OF FU­EL FOR AID WORK­ERS

Most of the hun­dreds of thou­sands of peo­ple liv­ing in Gaza City and sur­round­ing ar­eas have fled af­ter weeks of Is­raeli bom­bard­ments. Hard­ly any aid has been de­liv­ered to the the north, which has been with­out pow­er or run­ning wa­ter for weeks.

More than 11,200 peo­ple, two-thirds of them women and mi­nors, have been killed in Gaza, ac­cord­ing to the Pales­tin­ian Health Min­istry in Ra­mal­lah, and two thirds of the ter­ri­to­ry’s 2.3 mil­lion peo­ple have fled their homes. About 2,700 peo­ple have been re­port­ed miss­ing, with most be­lieved to be buried un­der the rub­ble. The min­istry’s count does not dif­fer­en­ti­ate be­tween civil­ian and mil­i­tant deaths.

Al­most the en­tire pop­u­la­tion of Gaza has squeezed in­to the south­ern two-thirds of the tiny ter­ri­to­ry, where con­di­tions have been de­te­ri­o­rat­ing as bom­bard­ment there con­tin­ues.

The U.N. agency for Pales­tin­ian refugees said Tues­day that its fu­el de­pot in Gaza was emp­ty and that it would soon cease re­lief op­er­a­tions, in­clud­ing bring­ing lim­it­ed sup­plies of food and med­i­cine in from Egypt for the more than 600,000 peo­ple shel­ter­ing in se­vere­ly over­crowd­ed U.N.-run schools and oth­er fa­cil­i­ties in the south.

Is­raeli de­fense of­fi­cials changed course ear­ly Wednes­day to al­low some 24,000 liters (6,340 gal­lons) of fu­el in for hu­man­i­tar­i­an ef­forts, of­fi­cials said. Ear­li­er, they re­peat­ed­ly re­ject­ed al­low­ing fu­el in­to Gaza, say­ing Hamas would di­vert it for mil­i­tary use.

CO­GAT, the Is­raeli de­fense body re­spon­si­ble for Pales­tin­ian af­fairs, said it would al­low U.N. trucks to re­fill at the Rafah cross­ing on the Egypt­ian bor­der lat­er Wednes­day. It said the de­ci­sion was made in re­sponse to a re­quest from the U.S.

HOS­PI­TALS OUT OF SER­VICE

The raid in­to Shi­fa sparked con­dem­na­tion from Jor­dan and the in­ter­na­tion­al­ly rec­og­nized Pales­tin­ian Au­thor­i­ty, which called it a vi­o­la­tion of in­ter­na­tion­al law. U.N. aid chief Mar­tin Grif­fiths said he was “ap­palled” by the raid, say­ing the pro­tec­tion of civil­ians “must over­ride all oth­er con­cerns.”

Hos­pi­tals can lose their pro­tect­ed sta­tus if com­bat­ants use them for mil­i­tary pur­pos­es, but civil­ians must be giv­en am­ple time to flee, and any at­tack must be pro­por­tion­al to the mil­i­tary ob­jec­tive.

Thou­sands of dis­placed peo­ple who had been shel­ter­ing at Shi­fa, along with pa­tients who were able to move, had fled the med­ical com­pound in Gaza City through a cor­ri­dor es­tab­lished by Is­raeli forces in re­cent days as Is­raeli troops en­cir­cled the com­plex and bat­tled Hamas mil­i­tants out­side its gates. Some Pales­tini­ans who made it out said Is­raeli forces had fired at evac­uees.

Shi­fa had stopped op­er­a­tions over the week­end, as its sup­plies dwin­dled and a lack of elec­tric­i­ty left it no way to run in­cu­ba­tors and oth­er life­sav­ing equip­ment. Af­ter days with­out re­frig­er­a­tion, morgue stuff dug a mass grave Tues­day for 120 bod­ies in a court­yard.

The Health Min­istry said 40 pa­tients, in­clud­ing three ba­bies, have died since Shi­fa’s emer­gency gen­er­a­tor ran out of fu­el Sat­ur­day. An­oth­er 36 ba­bies are at risk of dy­ing be­cause there is no pow­er for in­cu­ba­tors, ac­cord­ing to the min­istry.

BAT­TLE IN GAZA CITY

Is­raeli troops have ex­tend­ed their con­trol across north­ern Gaza, cap­tur­ing the ter­ri­to­ry’s leg­is­la­ture build­ing and po­lice head­quar­ters. But in­de­pen­dent ac­counts of the fight­ing in Gaza City have been near­ly im­pos­si­ble to gath­er, as com­mu­ni­ca­tions with the north have large­ly col­lapsed.

Is­raeli mil­i­tary spokesman Daniel Ha­gari said Is­raeli forces have com­plet­ed the takeover of Shati refugee camp, a dense­ly built dis­trict, and are mov­ing about freely in the city as a whole.

In­side some of the new­ly cap­tured build­ings, sol­diers held up the Is­raeli flag and mil­i­tary flags in cel­e­bra­tion. In a na­tion­al­ly tele­vised news con­fer­ence, De­fense Min­is­ter Yoav Gal­lant said Hamas had “lost con­trol” of north­ern Gaza and that Is­rael made sig­nif­i­cant gains in Gaza City.

But asked about the time frame for the war, Gal­lant said: “We’re talk­ing about long months, not a day or two.”

The mil­i­tary says its forces have found weapons and elim­i­nat­ed fight­ers in gov­ern­ment build­ings, schools and res­i­den­tial build­ings.

Is­rael says it has killed sev­er­al thou­sand fight­ers, in­clud­ing im­por­tant mid-lev­el com­man­ders, while 46 of its own sol­diers have been killed in Gaza.

Magdy re­port­ed from Cairo. As­so­ci­at­ed Press writer Amy Teibel in Jerusalem con­tributed to this re­port.

KHAN YOU­NIS, Gaza Strip (AP) —