Staff at a hospital in northern Gaza say the building has been surrounded by Israeli forces who set fire to medical departments and ordered staff and patients to evacuate, after reports of a nearby airstrike that the local health ministry said killed about 50 people.

The hospital, Kamal Adwan, has been caught in the middle of Israel’s offensive against Hamas militants in northern Gaza.

CAIRO − Israeli forces on Friday raided the Kamal Adwan Hospital, one of three medical facilities on the northern edge of Gaza, ordering dozens of patients and hundreds of others to evacuate and leaving part of the site on fire, health ministry officials said.

Israeli troops stormed one of the last hospitals operating in northern Gaza on Friday, forcing many staff and patients outside to strip in winter weather, the territory’s health ministry said. The army denied claims it had entered or set fire to the complex and accused Hamas of using the facility for cover.

Israeli forces raided the Kamal Adwan Hospital, one of only three medical facilities on the northern edge of the Gaza Strip, on Friday, ordering dozens of patients and hundreds of others to evacuate the compound,

Israel’s war on Gaza has so far killed over 45,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to the local health ministry. The air and ground assault has caused widespread destruction and displaced around 90 per cent of the besieged territory’s 2.3 million people, often multiple times.

Eid Sabbah, head of the nursing department at Kamal Adwan hospital, told the BBC that at about 07:00 on Friday, the military gave the administration 15 minutes to evacuate patients and staff into its courtyard.

Israeli forces have reportedly stormed northern Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital and forced out all the patients and staff who were there.

Israeli soldiers stormed and burned a hospital in isolated northern Gaza after forcibly removing staff and patients on Friday, Health Ministry officials said. The Israeli military said the hospital wa