A senior official at Al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza has said it is under Israeli military siege for a fifth straight day.

“We are still under siege for the fifth day in a row,” the hospital’s acting director, Dr Mohammad Saleh, told AFP.

“Soldiers are present in the hospital’s courtyard and in nearby houses,” he said, adding that there was “continuous gunfire and shelling” towards it.

Troops stormed the hospital building on Wednesday evening, he said.

“The hospital was stormed and staff were forced to leave. At the moment I have only 13 staff, 11 patients and two women accompanying wounded children,” Saleh said.

World Health Organisation chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X that 140 staff, patients and accompanying adults were inside the hospital when troops stormed it.

“These are the only two functional hospitals remaining in northern Gaza. Ensuring their ability to deliver health services is imperative,” Ghebreyesus said in Geneva.