The Israeli military surrounded one of the last functioning hospitals in northern Gaza, ordering patients and staff to evacuate and remove their clothing, say eyewitnesses, as concern grows for patients and health workers that remain in the facility.

At least 59 people were killed in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, 50 of them in a strike on a building in the most northern part of the strip near the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia.

Gaza authorities said an Israeli airstrike killed five Palestinian journalists in a vehicle outside a hospital on Thursday but the Israeli army said the victims were Islamic Jihad militants posing as media workers.