The World Health Organisation (WHO) has praised staff at Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital for doing “everything they can” to care for patients despite being surrounded by Israeli forces trying to wipe out Hamas, Reuters reports.

“We know there’s not enough food, that the staff are struggling to get any clean water because their water tanks were destroyed, but they are still doing everything they can to keep providing medical care for the desperately ill patients they have,” WHO spokesperson Margaret Harris said in Geneva.

“We actually still describe Al-Shifa as a functioning hospital because of the heroic efforts the staff are making.”

Harris said Al-Shifa now had 700 patients, more than 400 health staff and around 3,000 internally displaced people. She said 20 inpatient deaths had been reported in the last 48 hours although the situation could be much worse.