Palestinians claim 13 killed in central Gaza strikes overnight

Palestinians walks near tents used as shelter along a street covered with stagnant wastewater in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on July 19, 2024. (Bashar Taleb/AFP)
Palestinians walks near tents used as shelter along a street covered with stagnant wastewater in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on July 19, 2024. (Bashar Taleb/AFP)

At least 13 people were killed in three Israeli airstrikes that hit refugee camps in central Gaza overnight into Saturday, according to Palestinian health officials.

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 13 corpses were counted by AP journalists at the hospital.

The latest casualties follow a rare moment of hope in war-ravaged Gaza after medical teams recovered a live baby from a heavily pregnant Palestinian mother killed in an airstrike that hit her home in Nuseirat late Thursday evening.

Heavily pregnant 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 told The Associated Press that a baby boy had been delivered.

The still-unnamed newborn is stable but has suffered from a shortage of oxygen and has been placed in an incubator, Dr. Khalil Dajran says. The baby boy’s father was wounded in the same strike but survived.

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