Watch a view of Israel-Gaza border as fighting traps patients and medics in Gaza’s largest hospital

Watch a view over the Israel-Gaza border on Tuesday 14 November.

Thousands of people appear to have fled from Gaza's largest hospital as Israeli forces and Palestinian militants battle outside its gates, but hundreds of patients, including dozens of babies at risk of dying because of a lack of electricity, remained inside, health officials said yesterday.

With only intermittent communications, it was difficult to reconcile competing claims from the Israeli military, which said it was providing a safe corridor for people to move south, and Palestinian health officials inside the hospital, who said the compound was surrounded by constant heavy gunfire.

The military also said it had placed 300 liters (79 gallons) of fuel near the hospital to help power its generators, but that Hamas militants had prevented staff from reaching it. The Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza disputed that, and said the fuel would have provided less than an hour of electricity.

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Shifa has been without water for three days and “is not functioning as a hospital anymore," in a post on social media.