More than 20 patients have died near Gaza al-Shifa Hospital According to a hospital official and the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, unrest has occurred over the past two days as Israeli forces continue to raid the facility.

The Health Ministry said on Friday that 24 patients had died in the last 48 hours due to power outages at the hospital, which has been out of service since Saturday due to a lack of fuel.

“24 patients in different departments died in the last 48 hours because vital medical equipment stopped working due to the power outage,” Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said on Friday.

Muhammad Abu Salmiya, director of al-Shifa Hospital, told Al Jazeera that 22 patients died overnight.

The health facility has become the focus of Israel’s ground offensive in the northern Gaza Strip. Special forces have been combing the facility since Wednesday as international concern grows over the fate of hundreds of patients and thousands of civilians seeking shelter there.

Israel has claimed that Hamas militants are using a tunnel complex under the hospital to carry out attacks. Hamas and hospital officials have repeatedly denied the claims.

Israel said its forces found a vehicle containing a large number of weapons and an underground structure it described as a Hamas tunnel shaft after a two-day search of the site.

The army also said it found the bodies of two hostages in buildings nearby, but not within the hospital compound.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said the raid destroyed medical supplies at the hospital, where the United Nations estimated 2,300 patients, staff and displaced Palestinians sought refuge before Israeli troops entered.

Al-Shifa officials said a premature baby died at the hospital on Friday, the first baby to die there in the two days since Israeli forces invaded.

Three had died in previous days when the hospital was surrounded by Israeli forces.

Muhammad Abu Salmiya, director of Al-Shifa Hospital, told Al Jazeera that the medical compound had become a “big prison” and a “mass grave” for all the people inside.

“We have nothing left – no electricity, no food, no water. We lose a life every minute. Overnight we lost 22 people, [and] For the last three days, the hospital has been under siege,” Salmiya said.

Huge fuel shortage

Israel imposed a strict blockade and launched a military attack on Gaza last month after Hamas carried out an attack on southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people and took about 240 others hostage, according to Israeli officials.

According to Palestinian authorities in Gaza, the Israeli air and ground attack killed more than 12,000 people, including 5,000 children.

The Israeli siege, now in its seventh week, has severely restricted supplies of food, water, electricity and fuel to Gaza’s 2.3 million residents, and aid groups are warning of a humanitarian crisis in the territory.

Israel has said it has agreed to a U.S. request to allow two fuel trucks a day into the Gaza Strip after the U.N. warned that shortages had halted aid deliveries and put people at risk of starvation. The amount represents about half of what the UN says it needs to carry out life-saving operations for hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza, including refueling water systems, hospitals, bakeries and aid trucks.

The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) previously said its aid trucks were unable to enter the Gaza Strip from Egypt for the second day in a row on Friday due to a lack of fuel and a near-total communications blackout since Thursday.

UNRWA said it was unable to “manage or coordinate humanitarian convoys” due to the telecommunications outage.

Almost complete collapse

More than half of Gaza’s hospitals are no longer functioning due to fighting, damage or shortages, and the Israeli raid on al-Shifa left significant damage to radiology, burns and dialysis units, Hamas said.

Conditions for Palestinian civilians are rapidly deteriorating, the United Nations has warned.

More than 1.5 million people have been internally displaced, and Israel’s blockade of the territory means “civilians face the imminent threat of starvation,” said Cindy McCain, head of the World Food Program.

According to UNRWA, 70 percent of people lack access to clean water in southern Gaza, where raw sewage began flowing into the streets.

UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini described children staying at a UN school “begging for a drink of water or a loaf of bread.”