PALESTINIANS began to flee the main hospital in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis today.

This comes after weeks of heavy fighting that isolated the medical facility and claimed the lives of several people inside it.

Israel’s invasion of Gaza, now in its fifth month, has devastated the strip’s health sector, with less than half of its hospitals even partially functioning as scores of people are killed and wounded in daily bombardments. 

Israel accuses the militants of using hospitals and other civilian buildings as cover.

Khan Younis is the main target of a rolling ground offensive that Israel has said will soon be expanded to Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah. 

About 1.4 million people — over half the territory’s population — are crammed into tent camps and overflowing apartments and shelters in the town on the Egyptian border.

In northern Israel, meanwhile, a rocket attack wounded at least eight people today when one of the projectiles hit a home in the town of Safed. 

Israeli media reported that a woman was killed in the attack, but the military did not immediately confirm the reports.

Israel carried out air strikes in southern Lebanon in response, killing four people, including a Syrian woman and her two Lebanese children, and wounding at least nine, Lebanese security officials and local media said.

The war erupted after Hamas launched a surprise attack into Israel on October 7, during which 1,200 people were killed and 250 were taken captive. More than 100 hostages were released during a week-long ceasefire in November in return for 240 Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.

Israel responded to the attack by launching one of the deadliest and most destructive air and ground offensives in history. 

At least 28,576 Palestinians have been killed, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

More than 68,000 people have been wounded in the war, including 11,000 in need of evacuation for urgent treatment, according to the ministry.

About 80 per cent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes, large areas in northern Gaza have been completely destroyed and a humanitarian crisis has left a quarter of the population starving.

Meanwhile, in Cairo, talks between the United States, Egypt, Israel and Qatar failed to come up with a deal on a possible Gaza truce.

The Egyptian State Information Service said in a statement said there was a “keenness to continue consultation and co-ordination” on the key issues, but no breakthrough had been made.