Israeli military sources are now beginning to call the Israel Defense Forces' weeklong raid on Gaza's largest hospital, Al-Shifa, one of the "single largest and most successful" operations in the nearly six-month war with Hamas.

The IDF launched an operation at Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza on Monday, claiming "senior Hamas terrorists" were using the hospital, located in Gaza City, to "conduct and promote terrorist activity."

The Israeli military said it has detained more than 800 men and that about 480 of them are Hamas or Islamic Jihad members. Special intelligence units have begun to interrogate some of them, and those who were found not to be affiliated with militant groups were released, according to the IDF. Israeli officials have said more than 140 Hamas terrorists have been killed throughout the course of the operation.

IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Thursday the operation at Al-Shifa would go on "for some days."

The IDF did not release video Sunday from the hospital, but in recent days released footage of food and water being delivered by special units to the roughly 3,000 civilians estimated to be sheltering in the hospital, according to the IDF and Palestinian health officials.

People near the area were purportedly being told to leave as reports emerged of some buildings in the vicinity of the complex being detonated. At least 3,000 Gazans remain trapped at Al-Shifa with limited food and water due to the siege, according to hospital officials.

However, an Israeli official said militants are holed up inside the hospital and that rather than send in troops, the military is calling for them to surrender.

Telecommunications are down near the hospital, but families who managed to flee the hospital arrived Sunday in central Gaza -- some of them in tattered sandals and some others too overcome to talk. One family was filmed telling a local reporter there were explosions everywhere, and that "the walls fell on us, we are from the Shifa complex ... and this child," said the woman gesturing to an infant wrapped in a blanket in her arms, "was under the doors." She said there are dead "beneath the rubble, there are burning houses -- they are demolishing them over people's heads."

Israel has said it has not conducted targeted attacks against hospitals and claims Hamas misuses hospitals -- operating inside and underneath them in tunnels and using them as command centers, as well as to store weapons. The IDF has released videos it claims are evidence of Hamas operations. Hamas denies the accusations.

The IDF has said it is only targeting Hamas and other militants in Gaza and alleges that Hamas deliberately shelters behind civilians, which the group denies.

Hamas carried out an unprecedented incursion from Gaza into southern Israel by air, land and sea on Oct. 7, 2023, killing more than 1,200 people and taking 253 others hostage, according to Israeli authorities. More than 31,400 Palestinians have been killed and more than 72,000 others have been injured in Gaza since Oct. 7, amid Israel's ongoing ground operations and aerial bombardment of the strip, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.

This is not the first time Israeli forces have raided the Al-Shifa medical complex during the war with Hamas. An operation also occurred in November, with IDF soldiers claiming they found weapons and a tunnel complex at the hospital.

Prior to the current raid, international organizations had said Al-Shifa was in a "dire" situation.

Israel besieges two more Gaza hospitals, demands evacuations, Palestinians say

Israeli forces besieged two more Gaza hospitals on Sunday, pinning down medical teams under heavy gunfire, the Palestinian Red Crescent said, and Israel said it had captured 480 militants in continued clashes at Gaza's main Al Shifa hospital.

Israel says hospitals in the Palestinian enclave, where war has been raging for over five months, are used by Hamas militants as bases. It has released videos and pictures supporting the claim.

Hamas and medical staff deny the accusations.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said one of its staff was killed when Israeli tanks suddenly pushed back into areas around Al-Amal and Nasser hospitals in the southern city of Khan Younis, amid heavy bombardment and gunfire.

Israeli forces began operating around Al-Amal, the military said, following "precise intelligence ... which indicated that terrorists are using civilian infrastructure for terror activities in the area of Al-Amal."

Israeli armoured forces sealed off Al-Amal Hospital and carried out extensive bulldozing operations in its vicinity, the Red Crescent said in a statement.

"All of our teams are in extreme danger at the moment and are completely immobilised," it said.

The Red Crescent said Israeli forces were now demanding the complete evacuation of staff, patients and displaced people from Al Amal's premises and were firing smoke bombs into the area to force out its occupants.

A displaced Palestinian was killed inside the hospital compound after being hit in the head by Israeli fire, the Red Crescent said in a later update.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said dozens of patients and medical staffers had been detained by Israeli forces at Al Shifa in Gaza City in the enclave's north that has been under Israeli control for a week.

The Hamas-run government media office said Israeli forces had killed five Palestinian doctors during their seven-day-old swoop on Al Shifa.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on that report. It said earlier that it had killed over 170 gunmen in the raid, which the Palestinian Health Ministry said had also caused the deaths of five patients.

Al Shifa is one of the few healthcare facilities even partially operational in north Gaza, and - like others - had also been housing some of the nearly 2 million civilians - over 80% of Gaza's population - displaced by the war.

"Right now, Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists are barricading themselves inside Shifa hospital wards," said Israeli military spokesperson, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari.

Hagari said Hamas gunmen were firing at soldiers from inside the emergency and maternity wards of the hospital, and also firing mortars at troops in the hospital, causing damage.

The Hamas-run government media office said they "categorically refute this."

"How can they claim this while their soldiers roam and frolic inside the complex with ease, conducting interrogations with displaced persons, patients, and the wounded," said media office director Ismail Al-Thawabta.

AIR STRIKE KILLS SEVEN IN RAFAH

Reuters has been unable to access Gaza's contested hospital areas and verify accounts by either side.

Khan Younis residents said Israeli forces had also advanced and formed a cordon around Nasser Hospital in the city's west under cover of heavy air and ground fire.

In Rafah, Gaza's southernmost town on the Egyptian border that has become the last refuge for half of Gaza's uprooted population, an Israeli air strike on a house killed seven people, health officials said.

At least 32,226 Palestinians have been killed, among them 84 in the past 24 hours, and 74,518 injured in Israel's air and ground offensive into the densely populated coastal territory since Oct. 7, its health ministry said in a Sunday update.

Israel launched the offensive after Hamas-led Islamist militants attacked its south on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and taking 253 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.

U.S.-backed mediation by Qatar and Egypt has so far failed to secure a Hamas-Israel ceasefire, prisoner releases and unfettered aid to Gaza civilians facing famine, with each side sticking to core demands.

Hamas wants any truce deal to include an Israeli commitment to end the war and withdraw forces from Gaza. Israel has ruled this out, saying it will keep fighting until Hamas is eradicated as a political and military force.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the backlog of aid destined for Gaza as a moral outrage during a visit to the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing on Saturday.

Speaking in Cairo on Sunday, Guterres said the only effective and efficient way to deliver heavy goods to meet Gaza's humanitarian needs was by road.

The United States and other countries have tried using air drops and ships to deliver aid, but U.N. aid officials say deliveries can only be scaled up by land, accusing Israel of impeding relief, which Israel denies.

Israel-Hamas battles rage around major Gaza hospitals

UN chief Antonio Guterres has pleaded for an end to the 'non-stop nightmare' and for vastly greater humanitarian aid flows to the 2.4 million people trapped in Gaza's worst-ever war.

Israeli forces fought Hamas militants in besieged Gaza on Monday including around at least two major hospitals, raising fears for the patients, medics and displaced people trapped inside.

Troops and tanks have encircled Gaza City's Al-Shifa Hospital, the territory's biggest, for a week and more recently moved on the Al-Amal Hospital in the main southern city of Khan Yunis.

While Israel has labelled its operations "precise" and said it has taken care to avoid harm to civilians, aid agencies have voiced alarm about civilians caught up in the fighting.

As combat raged on, technical talks have continued in Qatar towards a truce and hostage release deal, and the UN Security Council was set to convene later in the day for a vote on a new ceasefire demand.

Almost six months into the war sparked by the October 7 attack, global concern has mounted over the threat of famine in Gaza, and on Israeli plans to invade the crowded far-southern city of Rafah.

UN chief Antonio Guterres, on a crisis visit to the Middle East, has pleaded for an end to the "non-stop nightmare" for the 2.4 million people trapped in Gaza's worst-ever war.

As Israel's top ally the United States has also voiced rising concern, the Israeli defence minister, Yoav Gallant, was headed to Washington for talks with Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin.

Gallant said his focus in the United States -- which provides Israel with billions of dollars in military aid a year -- would include "our ability to obtain platforms and munitions".

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who leads a coalition including ultra-nationalist parties, has vowed to go ahead with a Rafah invasion even without Washington's support.

US Vice President Kamala Harris stressed on ABC TV that a Rafah invasion would be "a huge mistake" and, when asked whether she would rule out "consequences" for Israel, replied that "I am ruling out nothing".

- 'We are suffering' -

The Gaza war broke out after Hamas's unprecedented attack of October 7 which resulted in about 1,160 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Israel has vowed to destroy the militants, who also seized about 250 hostages, of whom Israel believes around 130 remain in Gaza, including 33 presumed dead.

The health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip on Sunday put the total Palestinian death toll at 32,333, most of them women and children.

Bombardment and fighting in Gaza killed another 72 people overnight, according to the ministry.

More than 50 airstrikes rained down on the Gaza Strip, said the Hamas government press office.

Israel's armed forces gave a similar number and said its fighter jets and helicopters had struck about 50 "terror targets" and "eliminated approximately 10 terrorists".

Food and water shortages have deepened the suffering, especially in northern Gaza where residents, mostly women and children, were waiting in line to fill up jerrycans and buckets in Jabalia.

"We don't even have food to give us the energy to go to collect the water -- let alone the innocent children, women and the elderly," said one man, Bassam Mohammed al-Haou.

Another local man, Falah Saed, said "we are suffering a lot from water shortages because all and pipes and pumps have stopped working since the beginning of the war".

- Hospital battles -

Israel's army said it was battling militants around two hospitals and reported some 20 enemy fighters killed in the past day in close-quarters combat and air strikes.

Israel labelled the raids "precise operational activities".

Palestinians living near Al-Shifa have reported hellish conditions, including corpses in the streets, constant bombardment and the rounding up of men, who are stripped to their underwear and questioned.

The Al-Shifa raid was in its eighth day and the military reported detaining some "500 terrorists affiliated with the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist organisations" and locating weapons in the area.

Israel has said the operation will continue until the last militant is "in their hands", signalling an extended presence at Al-Shifa, which troops also raided in November.

At Al-Amal Hospital, the Palestinian Red Crescent said Israeli forces had surrounded all entrances and prohibited hospital staff from leaving.

The military said its Al-Amal operation included "raids on several terrorist infrastructure sites in the area and located explosive devices, RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) and military equipment".

The Red Crescent on Sunday said military vehicles had also surrounded the nearby Nasser hospital, but the situation there remained unclear.

- UN vote on truce call -

Later in the day in New York, the UN Security Council was to vote on a new draft resolution calling for an "immediate" ceasefire in Gaza and the release of hostages.

Russia and China had vetoed an earlier text proposed by the United States, but Beijing said Monday it would back the latest version.

Permanent Council member the United States has unequivocally supported Israel's right to defend itself but recently tempered its support for Israel over its conduct of the war.

The new text, according to the version seen by AFP on Sunday, "demands an immediate ceasefire" during the ongoing Muslim holy month of Ramadan, "leading to a permanent sustainable ceasefire".

It also "demands the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages" as well as the "lifting of all barriers to the provision of humanitarian assistance at scale".

The text is being put forward by non-permanent members of the Security Council, who have worked with Washington to avoid a veto, according to diplomats speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity.

One diplomat told AFP that "we expect, barring a last-minute twist, that the resolution will be adopted and that the United States will not vote against it".