Israeli forces withdrew from Gaza’s largest hospital Al-Shifa on Friday, the health ministry said, on the first day of a temporary truce between Israel and Hamas, AFP reports.

Health ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra, said the Israeli military had withdrawn but the people remaining at Al-Shifa were in a battered complex whose “main generator is destroyed along with numerous buildings”.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment.

“We’re working on further evacuations from hospitals as soon as possible,” said WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier, with recent Israeli operations focusing on the Indonesian Hospital, another medical facility in northern Gaza.

Lindmeier said the latest evacuation convoy had left Al-Shifa with “73 severely ill or injured patients” including some in need of critical care.

“We hope that this humanitarian pause leads to a longer-term humanitarian ceasefire for the benefit of the people of Gaza, Israel, and beyond,” said Jens Laerke, spokesman for the United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA.