Israeli forces raid north Gaza hospital

Israeli forces raided the Kamal Adwan Hospital, one of only three medical facilities on the northern edge of the Gaza Strip, on Friday, ordering dozens of patients and hundreds of others to evacuate the compound, officials said.

In separate incidents across Gaza, Israeli strikes killed at least 25 people, medics said. One of those strikes on a house in Gaza City killed 15 people, medics and the civil emergency service said.

The Palestinian health ministry said contact with staff inside the facility, which has been under heavy pressure from Israeli forces for weeks, had been lost.

"The occupation forces are inside the hospital now and they are burning it," Munir Al-Bursh, director of the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, said in a statement.

The Israeli military said it had made efforts to mitigate harm to civilians and had "facilitated the secure evacuation of civilians, patients and medical personnel prior to the operation" but gave no details.

Kamal Adwan, as well as the Indonesia and Al-Awda hospitals, have been repeatedly attacked by Israeli forces, which have been clearing out the northern edge of the Gaza Strip for weeks, Palestinian medical staff say.

Friday's raid comes a day after the army evacuated the nearby Indonesian Hospital and continued to press Al-Awda Hospital.

Bursh said the army had ordered 350 people inside the facility to leave to a nearby school sheltering displaced families. They included 75 patients, their companions, and 185 medical staff.

Hamas' Al-Aqsa Television said that hours after the raid, Israeli forces set the hospital ablaze. Footage circulating on Palestinian and Arab media, which Reuters could not immediately verify, showed smoke rising from the area of the hospital.

There was no Israeli military comment.