Israeli tanks at gates of Gaza hospital, Biden urges care

With tanks massed at the gates of Gaza's largest hospital, US President Joe Biden pressed Israeli allies to protect civilians, who on Tuesday were trapped inside with dwindling supplies of fuel and water.

After days of heavy air strikes around Gaza City's Al-Shifa hospital, witnesses said tanks and armoured vehicles were metres from the gate of the besieged facility, which has become a focal point of the five-week-old war.

The United Nations believes that thousands, and perhaps more than 10,000 people -- patients, staff, and the displaced -- may be inside and unable to escape because of fierce fighting nearby.

Amid reports of incubated babies dying for lack of electricity and patients facing sniper fire, a surgeon working for Doctors Without Borders said the situation inside the hospital had become "very bad".

"We don't have electricity. There's no water in the hospital. There's no food," said the doctor, who was not named by his organisation. "It is inhuman."

Israel accuses Hamas fighters of using tunnels under the hospital as a command "node", effectively engaging the sick and injured as human shields. It is a charge that Hamas denies.

Israel says it is not targeting the hospital, but has vowed to rout any and all Hamas fighters -- retribution for the attacks of October 7, which killed an estimated 1,200 people, mostly Israeli civilians.

US President Biden called on Israel to use "less intrusive action relative to the hospital", some of his most pointed comments on Israeli operations to date.

"The hospital must be protected," he told reporters in the Oval Office.

Israel Defense Forces spokesman Peter Lerner on Tuesday insisted Al-Shifa was "central in Hamas's command and control capabilities", but...