Gaza’s health ministry has said two patients at a hospital in the territory’s north have died during a siege by Israeli forces around the facility, AFP reports.

Since dawn, Israeli forces had surrounded and shelled the Indonesian Hospital in the northern town of Beit Lahia, Gaza health officials said.

“Israeli tanks have completely surrounded the hospital, cut off electricity and shelled the hospital, targeting the second and third floors with artillery,” the facility’s director Marwan Sultan said.

“There are serious risks to medical staff and patients.” Later, the health ministry said two patients in the hospital had died, blaming the Israeli military siege.

It said the military operation caused “the death of two patients inside the Indonesian Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, as a result of the hospital’s siege and the power outage and [lack of] medical supplies”.