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.

Broad­en­ing op­er­a­tions to the south — where Is­rael al­ready car­ries out dai­ly air raids — threat­ens to wors­en an al­ready se­vere hu­man­i­tar­i­an cri­sis in the be­sieged ter­ri­to­ry. Over 1.5 mil­lion peo­ple have been in­ter­nal­ly dis­placed in Gaza, with most hav­ing fled to the south, where food, wa­ter and elec­tric­i­ty are in­creas­ing­ly scarce.

It’s not clear where else they could go, as Egypt re­fus­es to al­low a mass trans­fer on­to its soil.

The war, now in its sixth week, was trig­gered by a wide-rang­ing Hamas at­tack in­to south­ern Is­rael on Oct. 7 in which the mil­i­tants killed over 1,200 peo­ple, most­ly civil­ians, and cap­tured some 240 men, women and chil­dren. Is­rael re­spond­ed with a week­s­long air cam­paign and a ground in­va­sion of north­ern Gaza, vow­ing to re­move Hamas from pow­er and crush its mil­i­tary ca­pa­bil­i­ties.

More than 11,200 Pales­tini­ans have been killed, two-thirds of them women and mi­nors, ac­cord­ing to Pales­tin­ian health au­thor­i­ties. An­oth­er 2,700 have been re­port­ed miss­ing, with most be­lieved to be buried un­der the rub­ble. The of­fi­cial count does not dif­fer­en­ti­ate be­tween civil­ian and mil­i­tant deaths, and Is­rael says it has killed thou­sands of mil­i­tants.

The war has in­flamed ten­sions else­where. On Thurs­day, gun­men shot and wound­ed four peo­ple at a check­point on the main road link­ing Jerusalem to Is­raeli set­tle­ments in the oc­cu­pied West Bank. Po­lice said three at­tack­ers were killed and a search for oth­ers was un­der­way.

SOME GUNS, BUT SO FAR NO TUN­NELS

Is­raeli troops stormed in­to Gaza’s largest hos­pi­tal Wednes­day, search­ing for traces of Hamas in­side and be­neath the fa­cil­i­ty, where new­borns and hun­dreds of oth­er pa­tients have suf­fered for days with­out elec­tric­i­ty and oth­er ba­sic ne­ces­si­ties.

Troops searched the un­der­ground lev­els of the hos­pi­tal on Thurs­day and de­tained tech­ni­cians re­spon­si­ble for run­ning its equip­ment, the Health Min­istry in Hamas-run Gaza said in a state­ment.

In this im­age tak­en from a video re­leased by the Is­raeli De­fense Forces on Tues­day, Nov. 14, 2023, an Is­raeli sol­dier holds a weapon in Gaza City. (Is­rael De­fense Forces via AP)

The mil­i­tary said its sol­diers were ac­com­pa­nied by med­ical teams bring­ing in in­cu­ba­tors and oth­er sup­plies.

Af­ter en­cir­cling Shi­fa for days, Is­rael faces pres­sure to prove its claim that Hamas used the pa­tients, staff and civil­ians shel­ter­ing there to pro­vide cov­er for its fight­ers. The al­le­ga­tion is part of Is­rael’s broad­er ac­cu­sa­tion that Hamas us­es Pales­tini­ans as hu­man shields.

The mil­i­tary re­leased video from in­side Shi­fa show­ing three duf­fel bags it said it found hid­den around an MRI lab, each con­tain­ing an as­sault ri­fle, grenades and Hamas uni­forms, as well as a clos­et that con­tained a num­ber of as­sault ri­fles with­out am­mu­ni­tion clips. The As­so­ci­at­ed Press could not in­de­pen­dent­ly ver­i­fy the Is­raeli claims that the weapons were found in­side the hos­pi­tal.

A Pales­tin­ian boy stands among the de­struc­tion af­ter Is­raeli strikes on Rafah, Gaza Strip, Wednes­day, Nov. 15, 2023. (AP Pho­to/Hatem Ali)

Hamas and Gaza health of­fi­cials de­ny mil­i­tants op­er­ate in Shi­fa — a hos­pi­tal that em­ploys some 1,500 peo­ple and has more than 500 beds. Pales­tini­ans and rights groups ac­cuse Is­rael of reck­less­ly en­dan­ger­ing civil­ians.

Mu­nir al-Boursh, a se­nior of­fi­cial with Gaza’s Health Min­istry in­side the hos­pi­tal, said troops ran­sacked the base­ment and oth­er build­ings, and ques­tioned and face-screened pa­tients, staff and peo­ple shel­ter­ing in the fa­cil­i­ty.

Is­raeli forces bat­tled mil­i­tants out­side the hos­pi­tal for days, but there were no re­ports of mil­i­tants fir­ing from in­side Shi­fa, or of any fight­ing with­in the hos­pi­tal af­ter Is­raeli troops en­tered.

At one point, tens of thou­sands of Pales­tini­ans flee­ing Is­raeli bom­bard­ment were shel­ter­ing at Shi­fa, but most left in re­cent days as the fight­ing drew clos­er.

The Health Min­istry said 40 pa­tients, in­clud­ing three ba­bies, have died since Shi­fa’s emer­gency gen­er­a­tor ran out of fu­el Sat­ur­day. There was no word on the con­di­tion of an­oth­er 36 ba­bies, who the min­istry said ear­li­er were at risk of dy­ing be­cause there is no pow­er for in­cu­ba­tors.

LOOK­ING SOUTH

The leaflets, dropped in ar­eas east of the south­ern town of Khan You­nis, warned civil­ians to evac­u­ate and said any­one in the vicin­i­ty of mil­i­tants or their po­si­tions “is putting his life in dan­ger.” Sim­i­lar leaflets were dropped over north­ern Gaza for weeks ahead of the ground in­va­sion.

Two re­porters who live east of Khan You­nis con­firmed see­ing the leaflets. Oth­ers shared im­ages of the leaflets on so­cial me­dia. The mil­i­tary de­clined to com­ment.

De­fense Min­is­ter Yoav Gal­lant said Wednes­day the ground op­er­a­tion will even­tu­al­ly “in­clude both the north and south. We will strike Hamas wher­ev­er it is.”

The mil­i­tary says it has large­ly con­sol­i­dat­ed its con­trol of the north, in­clud­ing seiz­ing and de­mol­ish­ing gov­ern­ment build­ings. Video re­leased by the army Thurs­day showed sol­diers mov­ing be­tween heav­i­ly dam­aged build­ings through holes blown in their walls.

The mil­i­tary said it had blown up a res­i­dence be­long­ing to Is­mail Haniyeh, a se­nior Hamas leader based abroad. It was un­clear if any­one was in­side the build­ing.

With most of Gaza’s 2.3 mil­lion peo­ple crowd­ed in­to the ter­ri­to­ry’s south, res­i­dents say bread is scarce and su­per­mar­ket shelves are bare. Fam­i­lies cook on wood fires for lack of fu­el. Cen­tral elec­tric­i­ty and run­ning wa­ter have been out for weeks.

The wors­en­ing fu­el short­age threat­ens to par­a­lyze the de­liv­ery of hu­man­i­tar­i­an ser­vices and shut down mo­bile phone and in­ter­net ser­vice.

Is­rael al­lowed a small amount of fu­el to en­ter Gaza on Wednes­day, for the first time since the war be­gan, so that the U.N. agency for Pales­tin­ian refugees could con­tin­ue bring­ing lim­it­ed sup­plies of aid.

The fu­el can­not be used for hos­pi­tals or to de­sali­nate wa­ter, and cov­ers less than 10% of what the agency needs to sus­tain “life­sav­ing ac­tiv­i­ties,” said Thomas White, the agency’s Gaza di­rec­tor.

Chehayeb re­port­ed from Beirut. As­so­ci­at­ed Press writ­ers Amy Teibel and Melanie Lid­man in Jerusalem con­tributed to this re­port.

BY NA­JIB JOBAIN AND KA­REEM CHEHAYEB

KHAN YOU­NIS, Gaza Strip (AP)