AT least 13 people have been killed in three Israeli air strikes that hit refugee camps in central Gaza, according to Palestinian health officials, as ceasefire talks continue in Cairo.
Among the dead in Nuseirat Refugee Camp and Bureij Refugee Camp were three children and one woman, according to Palestinian ambulance teams that transported the bodies to the nearby Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital.
The latest casualties follow a rare moment of hope in war-ravaged Gaza, after a medical teams recovered a live baby from a heavily pregnant Palestinian mother killed in an air strike that hit her home in Nuseirat late on Thursday evening.
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Ola al-Kurd, 25, was killed along with six others in the blast, but was quickly rushed by emergency workers to Al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza in the hope of saving the unborn child.
Hours later, doctors confirmed that a baby boy had been delivered.
The still-unnamed child is stable but has suffered from a shortage of oxygen and has been placed in an incubator, said Dr Khalil Dajran. The baby boy’s father was injured in the same strike, but survived.
Israel's bombardment of Gaza has killed more than 38,900 people.
The war has created a humanitarian catastrophe in the coastal Palestinian territory, displaced most of its 2.3 million population and triggered widespread hunger.
Hamas’s October 7 attack killed 1200 people, mostly civilians, and militants took about 250 hostage.
About 120 remain in captivity, with about a third of them believed to be dead, according to Israeli authorities.
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The latest escalation of violence has left thousands of women and children dead, according to health officials in the Gaza Strip. In April, a premature Palestinian baby was rescued from her dead mother’s womb but died days later.
In Cairo, international mediators, including the United States, are continuing to push Israel and Hamas toward a phased deal that would halt the fighting and free about 120 hostages in Gaza.
On Friday, US secretary of state Anthony Blinken said a ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel that will release Israeli hostages captive by the group in Gaza is “inside the 10-yard line”, but added: “We know that anything in the last 10 yards are the hardest.”
Sporadic negotiations between the warring sides have been under way since November’s one-week ceasefire, with both Hamas and Israel repeatedly accusing each other of scuppering efforts as a deal approaches.
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