The Israel Defense Forces denied carrying out a strike that hit an outpatient clinic at Gaza's Al-Shifa hospital Friday morning, stating it was a "misfired projectile launched by terrorist organizations inside the Gaza Strip."

There were two incidents at the hospital Friday morning, according to videos verified by ABC News. In one incident, a shell hit the refugee encampment outside of the hospital entrance. In the second incident, a strike hit the outpatient clinic where people were sheltering.

The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry blamed the Israeli military for the strike that hit the outpatient clinic.

As the humanitarian crisis in Gaza continues to worsen by the day, Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the United Nations humanitarian office, said, "If there is a hell on earth today, its name is northern Gaza."

"People who remain there, the corners of their existence are death, deprivation, despair, displacement, and literally, darkness," Laerke said. "The entire Gaza Strip has been plunged into darkness. … What do you tell your children in such a situation? It's almost unimaginable."

People are fleeing Gaza's Al-Shifa hospital, sources confirmed to ABC News, in the wake of a strike on the exterior area of the hospital's outpatient clinic. One surgeon told ABC News "everyone" has fled, calling it a "nightmare."

The hospital has been treating thousands of wounded people and housing as many as 80,000 displaced residents, according to The Associated Press.

The hospital's head of plastic surgery, Dr. Ahmed Mokhallalati, told ABC News he is among the roughly 15% to 20% of staff members still there on Friday.

Although many patients have evacuated, he said, "There is no hospital in Gaza that can accommodate this number of ICU patients -- around 100 ICU patients."

The Palestinian Red Crescent said occupation snipers fired on Gaza's Al-Quds Hospital, killing at least one and injuring at least 28.

Israel Defense Forces spokesman Richard Hecht said, "The IDF does not shoot at hospitals. If there are Hamas terrorists in the hospitals, the IDF will do what it needs to, but we are aware of the sensitivity. We tell Hamas to move the sick southward."

"Slowly we are closing in on them and taking every precaution not to harm the innocent," he said.

American diplomats abroad are giving stark warnings about the long-term ramifications of the war, telling their Washington counterparts in multiple diplomatic cables that their work and public opinion of the U.S. in the Arab world could be lost and denigrated for a generation, a State Department source told ABC News.

Diplomatic cables are how U.S. embassies around the world privately communicate with State Department leadership about what U.S. diplomats are seeing on the ground. While some are just regular updates, others contain candid assessments and analysis about what senior embassy staff are seeing on the ground and the potential impacts on U.S. foreign policy or the U.S. standing in the region.

A mother of four in Gaza told ABC News she is worried about getting vaccinations for her days-old newborn and keeping her children warm and fed.

"I'm afraid for him because there is no warmth, no vaccinations, and no good health supplies," Maha al Sharbsy, 32, said of her fourth child, Mohammed, who was born on Saturday. "The child has started to show signs of jaundice, and his condition is unstable."

Al Sharbsy said she and her children evacuated northern Gaza days after the war started following "intense" bombings. Now in southern Gaza, she said her children cannot sleep "because there are no winter clothes and no food," and she doesn't have money to buy food.

"I want the children to live in peace, cleanliness, and good health conditions. At the very least, for the sake of the children," she said. "We, the adults, are not the issue; the children are what matter."

Her 9-year-old son, Riad, told ABC News he misses his room and toys and is worried for his family.

"I'm afraid of the rockets, I'm afraid of people getting injured and dying, and I'm afraid of planes bombing our homes," he said.

-ABC News' Sami Zayara and Zoe Magee