As attention focused on the hostage release deal, fighting on the ground raged on. Mounir Al-Barsh, director-general of Gaza’s health ministry, told Al Jazeera TV that the Israeli military ordered the evacuation of the Indonesian Hospital in Gaza City.

According to Reuters, Israel said fighters were operating from the facility and threatened to act against them within four hours.

On Tuesday, Israel also said its forces had encircled the Jabalia refugee camp, a congested urban extension of Gaza City where Hamas has been battling advancing Israeli armoured forces.

The Palestinian news agency Wafa said 33 people were killed and dozens wounded in an Israeli air strike on part of Jabalia.

In southern Gaza, media said 10 people were killed and 22 injured by an Israeli air strike on an apartment in the city of Khan Younis. Reuters could not immediately verify the accounts of fighting on either side.