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Israel's military said it was conducting an operation Thursday inside the main hospital in southern Gaza, while Gaza health officials said Israeli fire killed one person and wounded several others at the site.
An Israel Defense Forces statement said the military had credible intelligence "indicating that Hamas held hostages at the Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis and that there may be bodies of our hostages in the Nasser hospital facility."
The IDF repeated its accusation that Hamas fighters are using Palestinian civilians as human shields and said Israeli forces had warned people to stay away from the area for their own safety.
"Our message to them is clear: We seek no harm to innocent civilians. We seek to find our hostages and bring them home. We seek to hunt down Hamas terrorists wherever they may be hiding," the IDF said.
The Hamas-run health ministry said last week that Israeli sniper fire in the area had prevented people from leaving, while medics warned the situation at the hospital was not safe.
Doctors Without Borders condemned the evacuation order and said its staff at the hospital were treating patients "amid near impossible conditions."
"People have been forced into an impossible situation: stay at Nasser Hospital against the Israeli military's orders and become a potential target, or exit the compound into an apocalyptic landscape where bombings and evacuation orders are a part of daily life," said Lisa Macheiner, Doctors Without Borders project coordinator in Gaza. "Hospitals should be considered as safe places and shouldn't even be evacuated in the first place."
Israel has defended its practice of ordering people to evacuate parts of the Gaza Strip throughout the war, saying the warnings are for the safety and protection of Palestinian civilians.
The repeated evacuations, and the war's move from northern Gaza toward the south, have pushed more than half of Gaza's population to seek refuge in Rafah, near the Egyptian border.
Australia, Canada and New Zealand Thursday became the latest to join in an international expression of concern for the Palestinians in Rafah ahead of an expected ground offensive by Israeli forces.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said in a joint statement that an Israeli operation in Rafah "would be catastrophic."
"With the humanitarian situation in Gaza already dire, the impacts on Palestinian civilians from an expanded military operation would be devastating. We urge the Israeli government not to go down this path. There is simply nowhere else for civilians to go," the leaders said.
French President Emmanuel Macron expressed similar concerns in a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Wednesday, days after U.S. President Joe Biden also voiced his opposition to a Rafah attack.
Netanyahu has not given an indication of when a Rafah offensive might take place, but he said Wednesday his military will continue its fight against Hamas militants in Gaza.
"We will fight until complete victory and this includes a powerful action in Rafah as well, after we allow the civilian population to leave the battle zones," Netanyahu said.
Netanyahu's office also said Wednesday that Hamas had presented no new offer in the latest talks to stop the four-month war and release more of the 100 or so hostages the militants are believed to be holding in Gaza. Hamas has been demanding that Israel withdraw all its troops from Gaza and allow the militants to continue to rule the territory along the Mediterranean Sea.
"A change in Hamas' positions will make it possible to move forward in the negotiations," Netanyahu's office said.
At least 28,576 Palestinians have been killed and 68,291 wounded in Israeli strikes on Gaza since Oct. 7, according to the health ministry in Gaza.
The war started then with the shock Hamas attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people according to Israeli tallies and led to the capture of about 240 hostages, 100 of whom were released during a weeklong cease-fire in November.
Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
The Voice of America provides news and information in more than 40 languages to an estimated weekly audience of over 326 million people. Stories with the VOA News byline are the work of multiple VOA journalists and may contain information from wire service reports.