A new Israeli raid left at least 13 dead on the night of Friday to Saturday in the refugee camps of Nuseirat and Bureij.
At least 13 people were killed in three Israeli airstrikes that hit refugee camps in central Gaza overnight Saturday, Palestinian health officials said.
Among the dead in the Nuseirat and Bureij refugee camps were three children and a wifeaccording to Palestinian ambulance crews who transported the bodies to the nearby Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.
The 13 bodies were counted by AP journalists at the hospital. The latest casualties follow a rare moment of hope in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip after a medical team recovered a live baby of a pregnant Palestinian motherkilled in an airstrike that hit her home in Nuseirat on Thursday evening.
Ola al-Kurd, 25, died in the blast but was rushed by medics to Al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza in hopes of saving her unborn child. Hours later, doctors told The Associated Press that a baby boy had been born. The newborn, whose name is still unknown, suffered from a lack of oxygen and was placed in an incubator, Dr. Khalil Dajran said. The boy’s father was injured in the same strike but survived.
These Israeli attacks come at a time when, in parallel, in Cairo, International mediators, including the United States, continue to push Israel and Hamas toward a gradual agreement which would end the fighting and free about 120 hostages in Gaza.
On Friday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel, which is expected to result in the release of Israeli hostages held captive in Gaza, is “within the 10-meter line,” but added “we know that everything in the last 10 meters is the most difficult.”
Unsuccessful negotiations between the warring sides have been ongoing since a week-long ceasefire in November, with Hamas and Israel repeatedly accusing each other of derailing efforts as they near a deal.
The war in Gaza, sparked by Hamas’s attack on southern Israel on October 7, has killed more than 38,900 people, according to the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians in its count.
The war has caused a humanitarian catastrophe in the Palestinian coastal territory, displaced most of its 2.3 million people and triggered widespread famine. A Hamas attack in October killed 1,200 peoplemostly civilians, and the militants took about 250 hostages. About 120 people remain in captivity, and about a third of them are believed to be dead, according to Israeli authorities.
