Geneva, January 8 (RHC)-- The UN reports that the World Health Organization and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) staff visited the Al-Aqsa Hospital on Sunday, January 7th where the hospital director told them most local health workers and some 600 patients had been forced to leave the facility due to increasing hostilities and Israeli evacuation orders.

Medical Aid for Palestinians and the International Rescue Committee also released a statement saying their staff had been forced to leave the facility, the only functioning hospital in the governorate of Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, due to Israeli military activity.

The WHO is now attempting to find the whereabouts of the more than 600 patients and hospital staff.