Battle of Khan Younis threatens biggest hospital still functioning in Gaza

Israeli forces fighting to seize the southern Gaza Strip's Khan Younis pounded areas near the biggest hospital still functioning in the enclave on Thursday.

Khan Younis residents said on Thursday the fighting had come closer than ever to Nasser Hospital, raising fears it would fall under siege and be shut like Shifa, the main hospital in the north, captured by Israeli forces in November.

The charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, which has doctors at the city's Nasser Hospital, said patients and displaced people sheltering there were fleeing in panic.

Israel says Khan Younis, which is sheltering hundreds of thousands of people who fled the north earlier in the war, is a main base for Hamas fighters.

The city is cut off from communication by a week-old mobile phone and internet blackout, with Gazans forced to access Egyptian or Israeli mobile networks close to the border fence.

The Israeli military said it had killed 60 fighters in the previous 24 hours, including 40 in Khan Younis. 

More than three months into a war that has killed more than 24,000 Palestinians and laid much of the Gaza Strip to waste, Israel has said it is planning to wind down its ground operations.

Two-thirds of Gaza's hospitals, including all medical facilities in the northern half of the enclave, have already ceased functioning altogether, and the rest are only partly functional. Losing Nasser would sharply curtail the limited trauma care still available for Gaza's 2.3 million residents.