Unborn baby survives as 18 children among 22 killed in Israeli air strikes

Infant saved as mother, father and sister die during attacks on Rafah

Israeli strikes on the southern Gaza city of Rafah killed 22 people over the weekend, including 18 children, according to health officials.

Near-daily air raids have been carried out on Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million has sought refuge from fighting elsewhere. It has also vowed to expand its ground offensive against Hamas militants to the city on the border with Egypt despite international calls for restraint.

“In the coming days, we will increase the political and military pressure on Hamas because this is the only way to bring back our hostages and achieve victory. We will land more and painful blows on Hamas – soon,” prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday.

The first Israeli strike in Rafah killed a man, his wife and their three-year-old child, according to the nearby Kuwaiti Hospital. However, doctors saved the woman’s unborn baby, the hospital said. The second strike killed 17 children and two women from an extended family.

The baby who survived the first striked weighed 1.4 kg and was delivered in an emergency C-section. She was now stable and improving gradually, said Mohammed Salama, a doctor caring for her.

Her mother, Sabreen Al-Sakani, had been 30 weeks’ pregnant.

The baby was placed in an incubator in a Rafah hospital alongside another infant, with the words “The baby of the martyr Sabreen Al-Sakani” written on tape across her chest.

Sakani’s young daughter Malak, who was killed in the strike, had wanted to name her new sister Rouh, meaning spirit in Arabic, said her uncle Rami Al-Sheikh. “The little girl Malak was happy that her sister was coming to the world,” he said.

The baby would stay in hospital for three to four weeks, said Dr Salama. “After that we will see about her leaving, and where this child will go, to the family, to the aunt or uncle or grandparents. Here is the biggest tragedy. Even if this child survives, she was born an orphan,” he said.

Asked about the casualties in Rafah, an Israeli military spokesperson said various militant targets were struck in Gaza including military compounds, launch posts and armed people.

“These children were sleeping. What did they do? What was their fault?” asked one relative, Umm Kareem. Another relative, Umm Mohammad, said the oldest killed, an 80-year-old aunt, was taken out “in pieces”.

Mohammed al-Beheiri said his daughter, Rasha, and her six children, the youngest 18 months old, were among those killed. A woman and three children were still under the rubble.

The Israel-Hamas war has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, at least twothirds of them children and women. It has devastated Gaza’s two largest cities and left a swath of destruction. Around 80pc of the territory’s population have fled to other parts of the besieged coastal enclave.

The $26bn aid package approved by the US House of Representatives on Saturday includes around $9bn in humanitarian assistance for Gaza, which experts say is on the brink of famine. The Senate could pass the package as soon as today.

The conflict, now in its seventh month, has sparked regional unrest pitting Israel and the US against Iran and allied militant groups across the Middle East. Israel and Iran traded fire directly this month, raising fears of all-out war between the long-time foes.

Tensions have also spiked in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Israeli troops killed two Palestinians who the military says attacked a checkpoint near the southern West Bank town of Hebron early yesterday. The Palestinian Health Ministry said the two killed were 18 and 19, from the same family. No Israeli forces were wounded, the army said.

The Palestinian Red Crescent rescue service said it had recovered 14 bodies from an Israeli raid in the Nur Shams urban refugee camp in the West Bank that began late on Thursday. Those killed include three militants from the Islamic Jihad group and a 15-year-old boy. The military said it killed 14 militants in the camp and arrested eight suspects. Ten Israeli soldiers and one border police officer were wounded.

In a separate incident in the West Bank, an Israeli man was wounded in an explosion yesterday, the Magen David Adom rescue service said. A video circulating online shows a man approaching a Palestinian flag planted in a field. When he kicks it, it appears to trigger an explosive device.