Patients, staff and displaced people left Gaza’s largest hospital on Saturday, health officials said, leaving behind only a skeleton crew to care for those too sick to move and Israeli forces in control of the facility.

The exodus from Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City came the same day Internet and phone service was restored to the Gaza Strip, ending a telecommunications blackout that forced the UN to shut down critical humanitarian aid deliveries because it was unable to coordinate its convoys.

Israel continued to expand its offensive in Gaza City, with the military warning in a social media post in Arabic that residents of two neighbourhoods in the east and north and the urban refugee camp of Jabaliya must evacuate for their safety. It said military activities would be paused briefly to allow them to leave. Earlier in the week, the Israeli defence minister had said troops had completed operations in the west of Gaza City.

Attacks also continued in the south of the Gaza Strip, with an Israeli airstrike hitting a residential building on the outskirts of the town of Khan Younis, killing at least 26 Palestinians.