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.

Communications systems in the Gaza Strip were down for a second day Friday with no fuel to power the internet and phone networks, causing aid agencies to halt cross-border deliveries of humanitarian supplies even as they warned people may soon face starvation.

Israel has been pushing deeper into Gaza City, and its troops have been searching Gaza's biggest hospital, Shifa, for traces of a Hamas command center the military alleges was located under the building. They have shown what they said were a tunnel entrance and weapons found in a truck inside the compound but not yet any evidence of the command center, which Hamas and Shifa staff deny existed.

Iran will not allow Israel to defeat Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the head of Iran’s expeditionary Quds Force wrote in a message to the commander of the Hamas military wing.

However, Gen. Esmail Qaani stopped short of saying that Tehran will join the battle in order to rescue Hamas.

A dire lack of fuel in the Gaza Strip shut down all internet and phone networks Thursday, the main Palestinian telecom provider said, effectively cutting off the besieged territory from the outside world.

In a signal that Israel’s ground invasion could soon expand to the south, Palestinians in parts of southern Gaza said they received evacuation notices Thursday. Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are crowded into the south, including hundreds of thousands who heeded Israel’s calls to evacuate the north to get out of the way of its offensive.

Israeli forces dropped leaflets warning Palestinians to flee parts of southern Gaza, residents said Thursday, signaling a possible expansion of their offensive to areas where hundreds of thousands of people who heeded earlier evacuation orders are crowded into U.N.-run shelters and family homes.

Meanwhile, soldiers continued searching Shifa Hospital in the north, in a raid that began early Wednesday. They displayed guns they say were found hidden in one building, but have yet to release any evidence of the central Hamas command center that Israel has said is concealed beneath the complex. Hamas and staff at the hospital, Gaza's largest, deny the allegations.

The Israeli army said Thursday its troops had taken "operational control" of Gaza port, a key piece of infrastructure in the Palestinian territory where Israel is waging war with Hamas militants.

"In the past few days, in a joint operation, soldiers... took operational control of the Gaza harbour, which was controlled by the Hamas terrorist organization," the Israeli army said in a statement. "All buildings in the harbour area were cleared."

The U.N. human rights chief decried Thursday serious allegations of violations of international law in the Israel-Hamas war, suggesting an international investigation was needed.

"Extremely serious allegations of multiple and profound breaches of international humanitarian law, whoever commits them, demand rigorous investigation and full accountability," Volker Turk said in a briefing on the situation to U.N. member states, adding "international investigation is called for".

A group of French diplomats are concerned that France would lose its influence in Lebanon and other Middle East countries because of its sometimes controversial statements over the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

The diplomats penned a highly unusual joint memorandum deploring what they allege is a pro-Israeli bias from President Emmanuel Macron.