The medical charity Doctors Without Borders said that there are at least 300 patients and staff inside the Al-Shifa hospital, which is currently “at the mercy of gunfire, shelling and fire from drones”.

Deputy medical co-ordinator Natalie Thurtle said that her team had only managed to establish brief communication with staff inside the hospital and said that another 100 members and families were in the surrounding vicinity.

She told BBC Radio 4’s The World at One programme: “We’ve been trying to evacuate them for three days”, she said, but the action had been hindered due to “sustained” fighting around the hospital.

“It’s very perilous and there is no opportunity for people to leave Shifa at the moment.”

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has called Israel a “terror state” committing war crimes and violating international law in Gaza, sharpening his repeated criticism of Israeli leaders and their backers in the West.

Speaking two days before a planned visit to Germany to meet Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Erdogan said Israel’s military campaign against Palestinian militant group Hamas included “the most treacherous attacks in human history” with “unlimited” support from the West.

He called for Israeli leaders to be tried for war crimes at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, and repeated his view – and Turkey’s position – that Hamas is not a terrorist organisation but a political party that won past elections.

Speaking on Wednesday morning, Dr Ahmed El Mokhallalati said he felt relief when troops finally entered the complex, because the fear of being bombarded from outside had been immense.

“All kinds of weapons were used around the hospital. They targeted the hospital directly. We try to avoid being near the windows,” he said, describing a large hole that had been blasted through the wall of a room in an outpatient building.

“Everyone got really, really terrified. It’s continuous shooting from the tanks,” he said.

Mokhallalati said Israel had warned the administration in advance of the raid, but staff did not know how it would be carried out.

“No one is operating, no one is seeing anyone. We are all waiting for the end point of this one, are we going to survive this moment or not. We are unable to perform anything, we are all waiting for the attack to settle down or to come to an end.”

A doctor in Gaza’s Al Shifa hospital said staff, patients and displaced Palestinians sheltering there were terrified as Israeli forces moved to raid the complex.

Dr Ahmed El Mokhallalati said explosions and gunfire which they had been hearing for over a month suddenly stepped up early Tuesday evening.

“The sound was really horrible,” he said by telephone. “And then we realized that the tanks are moving around the hospital. One of the big tanks entered within the hospital from the eastern main gate, and they were, they were they just parked in the front of the hospital emergency department.”

Israel said the military had launched the raid because Hamas has a command centre under the hospital and uses connected tunnels to hold hostages.

The director-general of the World Health Organisation has said they have lost touch with medical staff at the Al-Shifa hospital.

“Reports of military incursion into Al Shifa hospital are deeply concerning,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on social media platform X.

“We’ve lost touch again with health personnel at the hospital. We’re extremely worried for their and their patients’ safety.”

Qatari mediators are seeking to negotiate a deal between Hamas and Israel that includes the release of around 50 civilian hostages from Gaza. An official briefed on the negotiations said this would be in exchange for a three-day ceasefire on the besieged enclave.

The deal, which has been coordinated with the US, would also see Israel release some Palestinian women and children from Israeli jails and increase the amount of humanitarian aid allowed into Gaza, the official said.

It would mark the biggest release in hostages held by Hamas since the Palestinian militant group burst over the Gaza border, attacked parts of Israel and took hostages into the enclave.

Hamas has agreed to the general outlines of this deal, but Israel has not and it is still negotiating the details, the official said.

The first truck carrying a United Nations fuel shipment into Gaza since Israel imposed a siege on the Palestinian enclave in its war with Hamas has crossed from Egypt on Wednesday, though it will do little to alleviate shortages that have hampered relief efforts.

The delivery was made possible by Israel giving its approval for 24,000 litres (6,340 gallons) of diesel fuel to be allowed into Gaza for U.N. aid distribution trucks, though not for use at hospitals, according to a humanitarian source.

“This is only 9% of what we need daily to sustain lifesaving activities,” Tom White, director of the U.N. relief agency in Gaza, posted on social media platform X. He confirmed that just over 23,000 litres, or half a tanker, had been received.

Aid workers say a lack of fuel, which is needed for hospital generators, provision of water, sewage treatment and communications as well as for the distribution of relief, has contributed to a sharp deterioration of conditions for Gaza’s 2.3 million residents.

Limited deliveries of humanitarian aid have been crossing from Egypt into Gaza since Oct. 21, but Israel had refused to allow in fuel, saying it could be used by Hamas.

U.S. public support for Israel’s war against Hamas militants in Gaza is eroding and most Americans think Israel should call a ceasefire to a conflict that has ballooned into a humanitarian crisis, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll.

Some 32 per cent of respondents in the two-day opinion poll, which closed on Tuesday, said “the U.S. should support Israel” when asked what role the United States should take in the fighting. That was down from 41 per cent who said the U.S. should back Israel in a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted Oct. 12-13.

The share saying “the U.S. should be a neutral mediator” rose to 39 per cent in the new poll from 27 per cent a month earlier. Four percent of respondents in the poll said the U.S. should support Palestinians and 15 per cent said the U.S. shouldn’t be involved at all, both similar readings to a month ago.

Gaza’s two main telecommunications companies Paltel and Jawwal warned on Wednesday of a “complete telecom blackout in the coming hours” in the Gaza Strip.

“Main data centers and switches in the Gaza Strip are gradually shutting down due to fuel depletion,” the companies said in a joint statement.