13 Palestinians killed in attacks in central Gaza as ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas continue

WAFAA SHURAFA and JACK JEFFERY, Associated Press

10 minutes ago

This is a location map of Israel and the Palestinian Territories. (AP Photo)

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza (AP) — At least 13 people were killed in three Israeli airstrikes on refugee camps in central Gaza overnight Saturday, Palestinian health officials said, as ceasefire negotiations in Cairo appear to be making progress.

The dead in the Nuseirat refugee camp and the Bureij refugee camp included three children and one woman, according 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 come as a rare moment of hope emerges in war-torn Gaza after a medical team found a living baby born to a heavily pregnant Palestinian mother killed in an airstrike on her home in Nuseirat late on Thursday.

Heavily pregnant Ola al-Kurd, 25, was killed along with six others in the blast but was rushed by aid workers to Al-Awda hospital in northern Gaza in hopes of saving the unborn child. Hours later, doctors told The Associated Press that a baby boy had been born.

The still-unnamed newborn is stable but suffering from oxygen deprivation and has been placed in an incubator, Dr. Khalil Dajran said. The baby boy’s father was injured in the same attack but survived.

The war in Gaza, sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, has killed more than 38,900 people, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. The war has created a humanitarian catastrophe in the Palestinian coastal region, displacing most of its 2.3 million residents and causing widespread hunger.

Hamas’ October attack killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and militants took about 250 hostages. About 120 people remain captive, about a third of them dead, Israeli authorities said.

The war between Israel and Hamas has left thousands of women and children dead, health officials in the Gaza Strip say. 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 continue to press Israel and Hamas for a phased agreement that would end fighting and free some 120 hostages in Gaza.

On Friday, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said a ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel that would see the group release Israeli hostages in Gaza is “within the 10-yard line,” but added: “We know that the last 10 yards are the hardest.”

Since a week-long ceasefire in November, fruitless stop-and-start negotiations have been underway between the warring sides, with Hamas and Israel repeatedly accusing each other of obstructing efforts to reach an agreement.

___

Jeffery reported from the West Bank city of Ramallah.