Israeli tanks have surrounded what is thought to be the last functioning hospital in northern Gaza, aid agencies said on Thursday.

The Red Crescent said Israeli tanks were besieging Al-Ahli hospital in a “violent attack”, as Israel continued to pursue Hamas terrorists it says have been using health facilities as makeshift bases.

“Teams are unable to move and reach those who are injured,” the organisation said.

The Anglican-run hospital, located in Gaza City, is reported to be caring for 500 wounded people and running low on medical supplies.

Al-Ahli was the site of a deadly strike on Oct 17 that Hamas blamed on Israel, but Israel and its allies, including America, said was caused by a misfiring rocket launched by the Islamic Jihad group.

Meanwhile, in the south of the coastal territory, Israel dropped leaflets instructing people to evacuate to shelters, hinting at imminent military operations in the area.

The leaflets distributed in Khan Younis, where tens of thousands of Gazans fleeing the north of the strip have taken refuge, told people “to evacuate your places of residence immediately and head to known shelters”.

It added: “Anyone near terrorists or their facilities puts their life at risk, and every house used by terrorists will be targeted.”

The warnings came as Israeli troops searched Gaza’s main Al-Shifa hospital for a second consecutive day, looking for what they claimed was “well-hidden terrorist infrastructure”. Israel claims Hamas has created subterranean command posts under the hospital.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has released pictures of rifles and body armour it says were found on the premises, but is yet to produce any evidence of the allegedly extensive underground Hamas headquarters located there.

The IDF said it had also uncovered a laptop at the Al-Shifa hospital that contained an image of an Israeli soldier who was taken hostage by Hamas.

The publicly available image of the soldier was taken before she was captured, it said.

An IDF official had earlier told the BBC that troops had uncovered a laptop containing photos and videos of hostages at al-Shifa Hospital.

Lt Col Jonathan Conricus said that the laptop suggested that Hamas was in the hospital “within the last few days”.

That claim was later walked back, as the IDF clarified the photos on the computer were not in fact from after Hamas’s Oct 7 onslaught.

The United States said it remained convinced that Hamas had been using the hospital.

John Kirby, the White House’s national security spokesman, said: “We have our own intelligence that convinces us that Hamas was using Al-Shifa as a command and control node, and most likely as well, as a storage facility.

“They were sheltering themselves in the hospital, using the hospital as a shield against military action and placing the patients and medical staff at greater risk. We are still convinced of the soundness of that intelligence.”

All hospitals in northern Gaza have effectively been shut down by Israeli forces, who have ordered the evacuation of the entire northern part of the territory, home to more than half its 2.3 million people.

The area around Al-Shifa has been the central focus of Israel’s ground offensive that began at the end of October.

The World Health Organisation said it was trying to evacuate patients from the hospital, but was being hindered by security concerns and poor communications. Officials estimated 600 patients were still inside, including 27 in a critical condition.

Meanwhile, a lack of fuel caused a new communications blackout across the strip, the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) said.

Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner general of UNRWA, told a Geneva press conference: “Gaza is again in a total communication blackout, and ... it is because there is no fuel.”