The United Nations' World Food Programme has warned the international community that Palestinians living in Gaza are facing the "immediate possibility of starvation" because of a lack of food supplies.

UN aid deliveries to Gaza were suspended again on Friday due to shortages of fuel and a communications shutdown, deepening the misery of thousands of hungry and homeless Palestinians as Israeli troops battled Hamas militants in the enclave. 

On Friday morning, the Israel Defense Force said it had found the body of one its soldiers, Corporal Noa Marciano, in a building near the Al-Shifa hospital. Marciano was one of 240 hostages captured during Hamas's attack on Israel on October 7. 

Israel also claims it has found a tunnel shaft used by Hamas at the hospital. Israel says Hamas has stored weapons and ammunition and is holding hostages in a network of tunnels under hospitals like Shifa, using patients and people taking shelter there as human shields. Hamas denies this. 

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Trucks suspended

The United Nations said there would be no cross-border aid operation on Friday due to fuel shortages and a communication shutdown. For a second consecutive day on Thursday no aid trucks arrived in Gaza due to lack of fuel for distributing relief.

WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain said nearly the entire population was in desperate need of food assistance. "Supplies of food and water are practically non-existent in Gaza and only a fraction of what is needed is arriving through the borders," she said in a statement.

"With winter fast approaching, unsafe and overcrowded shelters, and the lack of clean water, civilians are facing the immediate possibility of starvation," McCain said.

Israel eyes new targets in Gaza

The Israeli military's chief of staff said Israel was close to destroying Hamas' military system in the northern Gaza Strip and there were signs the army was taking its campaign to other parts of the coastal enclave of 2.3 million people.

Israel accused Hamas of preventing people from heading to the south of the Gaza Strip, which the militant group denied. The army released a video it said showed a tunnel entrance in an outdoor area of Al Shifa, Gaza's biggest hospital.

The video, which Reuters could not immediately verify, showed a deep hole in the ground, littered with and surrounded by concrete and wood rubble and sand. It appeared the area had been excavated. A bulldozer appeared in the background.

The army said its troops also found a vehicle in the hospital containing a large number of weapons.

Palestinians killed in West Bank

Three Palestinians were killed in an Israeli drone strike early on Friday in the city of Jenin in the occupied West Bank, the head of the Palestinian ambulance service said.

The Israeli army confirmed it had carried out an airstrike, saying it had killed at least five militants during fighting in Jenin, a focus of repeated recent clashes as tensions soar against the backdrop of Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza.

At least 200 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the October 7 attack on Israel by gunmen of the Islamist movement Hamas operating out of Gaza.

"An armed terrorist cell that fired at Israeli security forces was struck by an IDF aircraft. Additional terrorists who fired and hurled explosive devices at the security forces were neutralized," the military said.

Hamas and the smaller militant group Islamic Jihad said they had engaged Israeli forces for several hours in the streets of Jenin, unleashing heavy fire and laying ambushes with explosives.

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