The World Health Organisation (WHO) described Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital as a “death zone” on Saturday after officials were shown a mass grave with more than 80 bodies at the site.

The UN agency has urged an immediate evacuation of the facility which was raided by the Israeli military on Wednesday as it carries out what it calls a “targeted operation against Hamas”.

Israel has yet to provide significant evidence to back up its claims that the terror group has been using Al-Shifa as a base from which to conduct major operations in Gaza.

A team led by WHO visited Al-Shifa on Saturday to carry out a humanitarian assessment. The team included public health experts, logistics officers and security staff from various UN departments.

Due to security risks, the team was able to spend only an hour inside the hospital.

Signs of shelling and gunfire were evident and the team saw a mass grave at the entrance of the hospital and was told more than 80 people were buried there.

Hundreds of patients and medical staff left Gaza’s largest hospital on Saturday with one evacuee describing a panicked and chaotic scene as Israeli forces searched and face-scanned men among those leaving and took some away.

The evacuation, which Israel says was voluntary, left behind only Israel Defence Forces and a small number of health workers to care for those too sick to move.

“We left at gunpoint,” Mahmoud Abu Auf told the Associated Press by phone after he and his family left the crowded hospital. “Tanks and snipers were everywhere inside and outside.” He said he saw Israeli troops detain three men.

Israel’s military claims it was asked by the hospital’s director to help those who would like to leave to do so and that it did not order an evacuation. 

But Medhat Abbas, a spokesman for the health ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza, said the military ordered the facility to be cleared and gave the hospital an hour to get people out.

A doctor at the hospital, Ahmed Mokhallalati, said on social media that about 120 patients remained, including some in intensive care and premature babies, and that he and five other doctors were staying.

The IDF has recovered the bodies of two Israeli hostages found close to Al-Shifa and an cache of weapons it claimed to have found within the hospital itself.

The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the WHO statement or the visit.