"Over the past day, the troops have eliminated terrorists and located weapons in the hospital area, while preventing harm to civilians, patients, medical teams, and medical equipment," the military said in a statement.

On Monday, the World Health Organization chief voiced alarm after Israeli forces launched an operation at Gaza's largest hospital, Al-Shifa, warning the fighting was "endangering health workers, patients and civilians".

"We are terribly worried about the situation at Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza," Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on X, formerly Twitter. 

"Hospitals should never be battlegrounds."

Israeli forces launched a pre-dawn raid on the hospital, based on what the army termed intelligence "indicating the use of the hospital by senior Hamas terrorists".

The health ministry of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip said residents near the hospital had reported dozens of casualties who could not be helped "due to the intensity of gunfire and artillery shelling".

The Hamas government media office condemned as a "war crime" the "storming of the Al-Shifa medical complex with tanks, drones and weapons, and shooting inside". It said  thousands of displaced Palestinians were sheltering there.

Hospitals -- protected under international humanitarian law -- have been hit repeatedly during Israeli strikes on Gaza since the war erupted on October 7.

The Israeli military accuses Hamas of using medical facilities as command centres, a charge it denies.

The Israeli army had previously raided Al-Shifa in November, sparking an international outcry, in an operation in which it said its troops had found weapons and other military equipment in rooms in and below the hospital.

Tedros pointed out Monday that Al-Shifa had "only recently restored minimal health services". 

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