The center witnessed the deaths of 13 Palestinians. As negotiations for a truce between Israel and Hamas continue, Gaza strikes
Based on observations of apparent progress in ceasefire negotiations in Cairo, Palestinian health officials claim that three Israeli attacks targeting refugee camps in central Gaza overnight into Saturday killed at least 13 people.
Palestinian medical personnel that carried the dead to the adjacent Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital reported three children and one mother were among the dead in Nuseirat Refugee Camp and Bureij Refugee Camp. AP reporters at the hospital counted the thirteen dead.
After a medical team found a surviving infant from a very pregnant Palestinian mother murdered in an airstrike that struck her house in Nuseirat late Thursday evening, the new casualties follow a rare moment of optimism in war-devastated Gaza.
Along with six others, 25-year-old Ola Al-Kurd was killed in the blast, but she was swiftly taken to Al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza in the hope of rescuing the unborn child. Hours later, doctors informed The Associated Press that they had delivered a baby boy.
Dr. Khalil Dajran reports that the newborn, who is still unnamed, is stable but has an oxygen deficit, so they have placed him in an incubator. The baby boy’s father, though injured in the same strike, managed to survive.
According to the area’s Health Ministry, Israel has killed over 38,900 Palestinians since October. The war on Gaza has resulted in the displacement of most of the 2.3 million Palestinians living in coastal Palestine, leading to a humanitarian disaster characterized by extreme hunger.
In April, doctors saved a premature Palestinian baby from her dead mother’s womb, but she died a few days later.
International mediators from the United States, among others, are still pushing Israel and Hamas towards a phased agreement that would stop the violence and rescue roughly 120 hostages in Gaza.
Although Anthony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, claimed on Friday that a ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel will release Israeli detainees held by the group in Gaza “inside the 10-yard line,” he added, “We know that anything in the last 10 yards is the hardest.”
Since November’s one-week ceasefire, fruitless stop-and-start negotiations between the warring sides have been under way, with both Israel and Hamas routinely accusing each other of scuppering the endeavour as it gets near a deal.