Is­raeli strikes pound­ed Gaza City overnight in­to Thurs­day as ground forces bat­tled Hamas mil­i­tants in dense ur­ban neigh­bour­hoods from which tens of thou­sands have fled in re­cent days.

Is­raeli troops were around 3 kilo­me­tres (2 miles) from Shi­fa Hos­pi­tal in the heart of down­town, the hos­pi­tal’s di­rec­tor said. Is­rael has been vague on troop move­ments, but of­fi­cials say Gaza’s largest city is the fo­cus of their cam­paign to crush Hamas fol­low­ing its dead­ly Oct. 7 as­sault in­side Is­rael.

Amid a drum­beat of in­ter­na­tion­al con­cern over dire con­di­tions in­side Gaza, me­di­a­tors were clos­ing in on a pos­si­ble deal for a three-day cease-fire in ex­change for the re­lease of around a dozen hostages held by Hamas, ac­cord­ing to two Egypt­ian of­fi­cials, a Unit­ed Na­tions of­fi­cial and a West­ern diplo­mat. The deal would al­so al­low a small amount of fu­el to en­ter the ter­ri­to­ry, which is cur­rent­ly re­liant on gen­er­a­tors for elec­tric­i­ty, for the first time since the war be­gan.

Is­raeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu has said any tem­po­rary cease-fire would have to be ac­com­pa­nied by the re­lease of hostages. Is­rael has said around 240 hostages are cur­rent­ly held in Gaza. Their plight has gal­va­nized Is­raeli sup­port for the war de­spite grow­ing in­ter­na­tion­al con­cerns.

West­ern and Arab of­fi­cials gath­ered in Paris on Thurs­day to dis­cuss ways of pro­vid­ing more aid to civil­ians in Gaza, a day af­ter the Group of Sev­en wealthy democ­ra­cies, which in­cludes close al­lies of Is­rael, called for the “unim­ped­ed” de­liv­ery of food, wa­ter, med­i­cine and fu­el, and for “hu­man­i­tar­i­an paus­es” in the fight­ing.

The pos­si­ble cease-fire deal is be­ing bro­kered by the Unit­ed States, Egypt and Qatar, a Per­sian Gulf coun­try that me­di­ates with Hamas.

A se­nior U.S. of­fi­cial said the Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion has sug­gest­ed Is­rael tie the length of a pause to a cer­tain num­ber of hostages be­ing re­leased in a for­mu­la that could be used for ad­di­tion­al paus­es. All the of­fi­cials spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty for fear of im­pact­ing the del­i­cate, on­go­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions.

Is­raeli For­eign Min­is­ter Eli Co­hen de­clined to elab­o­rate on any emerg­ing deal in an in­ter­view with Is­rael’s army ra­dio, say­ing “I’d rec­om­mend not talk­ing about what we’ve agreed to — it hurts the ne­go­ti­a­tions.”

BAT­TLES NEAR SHI­FA HOS­PI­TAL

Mean­while, Is­raeli ground forces bat­tled near Gaza’s largest hos­pi­tal, Shi­fa, where tens of thou­sands are shel­ter­ing along­side pa­tients, ac­cord­ing to the hos­pi­tal’s gen­er­al di­rec­tor, Mo­hammed Abu Selmia.

The Is­raeli mil­i­tary says Hamas’ main com­mand cen­ter is lo­cat­ed in and un­der the hos­pi­tal com­plex and that se­nior lead­ers are hid­ing there, us­ing the fa­cil­i­ty as a shield. Hamas and hos­pi­tal staff de­ny the claims and say the mil­i­tary is cre­at­ing a pre­text to strike it.

Scores of wound­ed peo­ple were rushed to Shi­fa overnight, Abu Selmia told The As­so­ci­at­ed Press on Thurs­day. “At dawn, a shell land­ed very close to the hos­pi­tal, but thank God on­ly a few peo­ple had mi­nor in­juries,” he said.

“The con­di­tions here are dis­as­trous in every sense of the word,” he said. “We’re short on med­i­cine and equip­ment, and the doc­tors and nurs­es are ex­haust­ed. … We’re un­able to do much for the pa­tients.”

In­ter­na­tion­al jour­nal­ists who en­tered the north on a tour led by the Is­raeli mil­i­tary on Wednes­day saw heav­i­ly dam­aged build­ings, fields of rub­ble and top­pled trees along the Mediter­ranean shore­line.

IN­CREAS­ING­LY DIRE CON­DI­TIONS IN GAZA

The trick­le of aid en­ter­ing Gaza from the south is large­ly barred from go­ing north, which has been with­out run­ning wa­ter for weeks. The U.N. aid of­fice said all the bak­eries there have shut down for lack of fu­el, wa­ter and flour. Hos­pi­tals run­ning low on sup­plies are per­form­ing surg­eries with­out anes­the­sia.

More than two-thirds of Gaza’s pop­u­la­tion of 2.3 mil­lion have fled their homes since the war be­gan, with many heed­ing Is­raeli or­ders to flee to the south­ern part of the be­sieged en­clave.

But the con­di­tions there are al­so dire. Is­rael has con­tin­ued to strike what it says are mil­i­tant tar­gets all across the ter­ri­to­ry. New ar­rivals from the north are squeez­ing in­to homes with ex­tend­ed fam­i­ly, or in­to U.N. schools-turned-shel­ters where hun­dreds of thou­sands are tak­ing refuge.

Still, the ex­o­dus from Gaza City and sur­round­ing ar­eas in the north has ac­cel­er­at­ed in re­cent days. The U.N. Of­fice for the Co­or­di­na­tion of Hu­man­i­tar­i­an Af­fairs said 50,000 peo­ple fled south on Gaza’s main high­way on Wednes­day dur­ing a dai­ly, hours­long win­dow an­nounced by the Is­raeli mil­i­tary.

There are clash­es and shelling near the road, and evac­uees re­port­ed see­ing corpses along­side it, the U.N. of­fice said. Most are trav­el­ing on foot with on­ly what they can car­ry, many hold­ing chil­dren or push­ing old­er rel­a­tives in carts.

The Hamas-run In­te­ri­or Min­istry, which has urged Pales­tini­ans to stay in their homes, has told me­dia out­lets not to cir­cu­late footage of peo­ple flee­ing.

A month of re­lent­less bom­bard­ment in Gaza since the Hamas at­tack has killed more than 10,500 Pales­tini­ans — two-thirds of them women and mi­nors, ac­cord­ing to the Health Min­istry in the Hamas-run ter­ri­to­ry. More than 2,300 oth­ers are be­lieved to have been buried by strikes that in some cas­es have de­mol­ished en­tire city blocks.

Is­raeli of­fi­cials say thou­sands of Pales­tin­ian mil­i­tants have been killed, and blame civil­ian deaths on Hamas, ac­cus­ing it of op­er­at­ing in res­i­den­tial ar­eas and us­ing Pales­tin­ian civil­ians as hu­man shields. Gaza’s Health Min­istry does not dis­tin­guish be­tween civil­ians and com­bat­ants in its ca­su­al­ty re­ports.

More than 1,400 peo­ple have died in Is­rael since the start of the war, most of them civil­ians killed by Hamas mil­i­tants dur­ing their ini­tial in­cur­sion. Is­rael says 32 of its sol­diers have been killed in Gaza since the ground of­fen­sive be­gan.

Pales­tin­ian mil­i­tants have con­tin­ued to fire rock­ets in­to Is­rael, and some 250,000 Is­raelis have been forced to evac­u­ate from com­mu­ni­ties near Gaza and along the north­ern bor­der with Lebanon, where Is­raeli forces and Hezbol­lah mil­i­tants have trad­ed fire re­peat­ed­ly.

Magdy re­port­ed from Cairo and Chehayeb from Beirut. As­so­ci­at­ed Press writ­ers Amy Teibel and Is­abel De­Bre in Jerusalem and Matthew Lee in Wash­ing­ton con­tributed to this re­port.

KHAN YOU­NIS, Gaza Strip (AP) —