The Israeli military released photos of a soldier standing beside cardboard boxes marked “medical supplies” and “baby food”, at a location Reuters verified was inside the facility. Other photos showed Israeli troops in tactical formation walking past makeshift tents and mattresses.

World attention has been focused on the fate of hundreds of patients trapped inside without power to operate basic medical equipment, and thousands of displaced civilians who had sought shelter there. Gaza officials say many patients including three newborn babies died in recent days as a result of Israel’s encirclement of the facility.

“Before entering the hospital our forces were confronted by explosive devices and terrorist squads, fighting ensued in which terrorists were killed,” the Israeli military said.

“We can confirm that incubators, baby food and medical supplies brought by IDF tanks from Israel have successfully reached the Shifa hospital. Our medical teams and Arabic speaking soldiers are on the ground to ensure that these supplies reach those in need.”

A senior military official said: “IDF soldiers have already found weapons and other terror infrastructure. In the last hour, we saw concrete evidence that Hamas terrorists used the Shifa hospital as a terror headquarter.”

Hamas called the claim that weapons were found “a continuation of the lies and cheap propaganda through which [Israel] is trying to give justification for its crime aimed at destroying the health sector in Gaza”.

Dr Ahmed El Mohallalati, a surgeon, told Reuters by phone on Wednesday morning that staff had hid as the fighting unfolded around the hospital overnight. As he spoke, the sound of what he described as “continuous shooting from the tanks” could be heard in the background.

“One of the big tanks entered within the hospital from the eastern main gate, and they were, they were they just parked in the front of the hospital emergency department,” he said. The Israelis had told the hospital administration in advance that they planned to enter, he said.

As Israel wages war in Gaza, Palestinian death toll in West Bank surges

After five days during which he said the hospital had come under repeated Israeli attack, it was a relief at least to have reached an “end point”, with troops now inside the grounds instead of outside shooting in, he said.

He was worried about the fate of his patients but unconcerned about potential clashes in the compound, saying Israeli claims that there were fighters inside had been a “big lie”.

The Israelis had used “all kinds of weapons” and “targeted the hospital directly” during their siege, he said, describing a large hole that had been blasted through the wall of a room in an outpatient building.

Another witness inside the hospital, reached by telephone, said tanks had entered the compound at 3am. The Israeli troops dismounted and spread out in the yard, and began searching the basement and entering buildings.

“It was very dangerous looking from the glass window. The administration of the hospital told us the occupation army informed them they wanted to search us and search room by room. I am very scared,” the man said, asking that his name be withheld for fear of Israeli reprisals.

“There was no shooting because there were no gunmen inside the facility. The soldiers were acting freely as were people inside the hospital, the doctors, the wounded and the displaced,” the man said, later adding that gunfire could occasionally be heard.

‘Hospitals are not battlegrounds’

Israel’s move towards al-Shifa hospital has raised questions about how it would interpret international laws on protection of medical facilities and the thousands of displaced people sheltering there, UN human rights officials have said.

UN aid chief Martin Griffiths wrote on X that “Hospitals are not battlegrounds” and that “[t]he protection of newborns, patients, medical staff and all civilians must override all other concerns.”

Israel’s mission to the United Nations in Geneva lashed out Griffiths, linking his comments to a meeting he held in the Swiss city on Wednesday with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.

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The UN warned on Wednesday its Gaza operations were facing collapse, just hours after receiving its first wartime delivery of fuel from outside the territory.

“Our entire operation is now on the verge of collapse,” said Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

“To have fuel for trucks only will not save lives anymore,” the UNRWA chief wrote on X, saying the fuel shortages had prompted critical shortages of drinking water. “By the end of today, around 70 per cent of the population in Gaza won’t have access to clean water,” he said of the 2.4 million people living there.

Israel has consistently maintained that the hospital sits above a Hamas headquarters, an assertion that Washington said on Tuesday was supported by its own intelligence.

The hospital and compound were for Hamas “a central hub of their operations, perhaps even the beating heart,” Israeli army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner said.

Israel launched its campaign to annihilate Hamas, the Islamist militant group which controls Gaza, after fighters crossed into Israel on October 7, rampaging through towns, killing civilians and dragging hostages back to the enclave. Israel says 1,200 people were killed and some 240 captives taken in the deadliest day in its 75-year history.

Since then, Israel has put Gaza’s entire population under siege, pounding the crowded strip with air strikes. Gaza health officials, considered reliable by the United Nations, say more than 11,000 Palestinians are confirmed killed, around 40 per cent of them children, and more are buried under the rubble. Israel has ordered the entire northern half of Gaza evacuated, and around two-thirds of residents are now homeless.

World leaders have stepped up criticism of Israel’s actions.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday called Israel a “terror state” that was committing war crimes and violating international law in Gaza, sharpening his repeated criticism of Israeli leaders and their backers in the West.

“With the savagery of bombing the civilians it forced out of their homes while they are relocating, it is literally employing state terrorism,” Erdogan said of Israel in parliament. “I am now saying, with my heart at ease, that Israel is a terror state”.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Wednesday urged Israel to end the “indiscriminate killing of Palestinians” in Gaza, in his sharpest criticism of Israel since war broke out last month.

“We demand an immediate ceasefire on the part of Israel in Gaza and strict compliance with international humanitarian law, which today is clearly not respected,” he said.

The Socialist leader reiterated he “stood with Israel” in “its response to the terrorist attack” by Hamas, and promised his new government would “work in Europe and in Spain to recognise the Palestinian state”.

Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse