Yemen's Houthi rebels seized an Israeli-linked cargo ship in a crucial Red Sea shipping route Sunday and took its 25 crew members hostage, officials said, raising fears that regional tensions heightened over the Israel-Hamas war were playing out on a new maritime front.

The Iran-backed Houthi rebels said they hijacked the ship over its connection to Israel and would continue to target ships in international waters that were linked to or owned by Israelis until the end of Israel's campaign against Gaza's Hamas rulers.

The United States said it is still working to secure a deal between Israel and Hamas after a reported tentative agreement to free women and children held hostage in Gaza in exchange for a pause in fighting.

"We have not reached a deal yet, but we continue to work hard to get to a deal," White House National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said on X, formerly Twitter, in response to the Washington Post reporting a deal had been agreed.

A United Nations team said Sunday that 291 patients were left at Gaza's largest hospital after Israeli troops had others evacuate. Those left included 32 babies in extremely critical condition, trauma patients with severely infected wounds, and others with spinal injuries who are unable to move.

The team was able to tour Shifa Hospital for an hour after about 2,500 displaced people, mobile patients and medical staff left the sprawling compound Saturday morning, said the World Health Organization, which led the mission. It said 25 medical staff remained, along with the patients.

Thousands of family members and supporters of some 240 hostages held in Gaza streamed into Jerusalem on Saturday, castigating Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government over his management of the war with Hamas and pleading with the government to do whatever it takes to bring their loved ones home.

As public pressure mounted, Netanyahu said Saturday that Israel's War Cabinet would meet with representatives of the families this week. "I am marching with you. The Israeli people are marching with you," he said. "I promise, when we have something to say, we will inform you."

U.S. President Joe Biden says that achieving a cease-fire amid Israel's war with Hamas "is not peace" and that an important key to lasting stability is a reunited Gaza Strip and West Bank that can be governed under "a revitalized Palestinian Authority."

U.S. President Joe Biden has pressed for the immediate release of hostages seized by Hamas in Israel during talks with the leader of Qatar, which has relations with the Palestinian movement.

Biden, in San Francisco for an Asia-Pacific summit, in a telephone call with Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani "discussed the urgent need for all hostages held by Hamas to be released without further delay," a White House statement said.

A first consignment of fuel has entered Gaza after U.S. pressure on Israel, allowing communications to resume in the territory, where a hospital director on Saturday said 26 people had been killed in a strike in Khan Yunis.

A two-day blackout caused by fuel shortages ended after a first delivery arrived from Egypt late Friday, but U.N. officials continued to plead for a ceasefire, warning no part of Gaza is safe.

Israeli troops ordered the evacuation of Al-Shifa hospital "in the next hour" over loudspeakers on Saturday, an AFP journalist at the scene reported, as troops combed the facility for Hamas hideouts.

Al-Shifa hospital -- Gaza's biggest -- has become the focus of the Israel-Hamas war, now entering its seventh week after the October 7 attacks on southern Israel.

The wreckage goes on for block after devastated block. The smell is sickening. Every day, hundreds of people claw through tons of rubble with shovels and iron bars and their bare hands.

They are looking for the bodies of their children. Their parents. Their neighbors. All of them killed in Israeli missile strikes. The corpses are there, somewhere in the endless acres of destruction.

Israel's army said Friday it killed at least seven militants in two separate confrontations in the West Bank, as Hamas admitted a number of its fighters were slain amid growing violence wracking the occupied territory.

Since the October 7 Hamas attacks on southern Israel, there has been a dramatic rise in the number of clashes in the West Bank, where the Israeli army has stepped up incursions targeting militant groups.