Fighting raged in Gaza on Wednesday, more than five weeks after Hamas's shock October 7 attack sparked a furious response from Israel which has vowed to destroy the Palestinian militant group.

About 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed in Israel in the attack and around 240 people taken hostage, according to Israeli officials.

In Gaza, more than 11,500 people, also mostly civilians, have been killed, officials in the Hamas-run territory have said.

Here are five key developments from the past 24 hours:

- Israeli forces leave hospital -

Israeli forces on Wednesday withdrew from Gaza's largest hospital hours after raiding it, a journalist in the compound told AFP.

The army said troops had found military equipment including weapons in their raid on Al-Shifa, a focal point in Israel's war on Hamas.

"We also found an operational headquarters with comms equipment... belonging to Hamas," said military spokesman Daniel Hagari.

The director of the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza rejected the Israeli claims, saying in a statement there were no weapons at the facility.

The Qatari foreign ministry denounced the raid as a "war crime", and called for "an urgent international investigation" into "the targeting of hospitals by the Israeli occupation army".

- UN Security Council vote -

The United Nations Security Council, which has been unable to reach consensus since the start of the war, adopted on Wednesday a resolution calling for "extended humanitarian pauses" in the fighting.

The resolution, prepared by Malta and adopted with 12 votes in favour, "calls for urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and corridors throughout the Gaza Strip for a sufficient number of days" to allow aid to reach civilians in the besieged territory.

Three states abstained -- the United States, Britain and Russia.

- Hostage gives birth -

A woman abducted by Hamas militants has given birth in captivity, the wife of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a letter released by his office.

"One of the kidnapped women was pregnant. She gave birth to her baby in Hamas captivity," Sara Netanyahu said in a letter addressed to US First Lady Jill Biden.

Her husband, US President Joe Biden, said on Tuesday he believed that a deal to free hostages was "going to happen, but I don't want to get into detail".

- Erdogan labels Israel 'terror state' -

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Israel a "terror state", stepping up his condemnation of the war in Gaza.

"I say clearly that Israel is a terror state," Erdogan told members of his Islamic-rooted ruling party in parliament.

"We do not forget those who openly support these massacres and those who go out of their way to legitimise them," he said in a broadside against the United States and other Western supporters of Israel.

Responding in a video on X, formerly Twitter, Netanyahu said Erdogan "actually supports the terrorist state of Hamas".

- Humanitarian official 'fears worst' -

Tensions across the Middle East have surged since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths discussed with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian concerns about the Israel-Hamas war spreading, with both agreeing that this "would not be good".

"If there is to be a war in the north with Hezbollah and Israel, then I fear the worst," Griffiths said at a press briefing in Geneva.

"It will be a war that makes even Gaza with its awful horrors of daily struggle look like just a beginning."

AFP