Inside a Gaza hospital, Mohammad al-Hadidi cradled his baby boy Omar -- his only surviving child after Israeli air strikes killed his wife and four other sons in the night.

"I have no one left in the world but you," the 37-year-old father said.

After the strikes, rescue workers pulled the five-month-old from the arms of his dead mother early Saturday, one of his tiny legs fractured in three places.

All his other children -- Suhayb, 13, Yahya, 11, Abderrahman, 8, and Osama, 6 -- perished in the bombing along with their mother Maha Abu Hattab, 36.

"They've gone to find God, we don't want to stay around here for much longer," the bereaved father said, sobbing.

"We will meet them soon, you and I. Oh God, let it not be too long."

Sitting on the edge of a hospital bed, Hadidi carefully kissed his child's cheek.

In his arms, Omar rested peacefully, his right leg poking out of his romper in a plaster cast.

Under a crown of tiny brown curls, his eyelids were bruised dark and swollen, and his face covered in scratches.

- 'Begged to stay the night' -

Saturday's strikes hit at the conclusion of Eid al-Fitr, usually a time of joy when Muslim families gather to mark the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan.

On Friday, Omar's mother had taken him and his brothers to visit their cousins nearby in the Shati refugee camp outside Gaza City where they all lived.

"The kids put on their Eid clothes, took their toys and headed off to their uncle's house to celebrate," Hadidi said.

"They called in the evening to beg to stay the night and I said OK."

Hadidi then paused to gather himself as he recalled what would become a fateful night.

I slept "at home alone... (and) woke up suddenly to the sound of bombing," he said.

Soon a neighbour called to say an Israeli missile had hit his brother-in-law's home.

"I hurried over as fast as I could, but when I got there the home was rubble, and rescue workers were pulling out bodies."

His sister-in-law and four of her children were also among the dead.

A video widely shared on social media shows Hadidi clutching his son to his chest, overwhelmed that he had survived.

- 'God was preparing us' -

Hadidi gently touched his son's face.

"All my other sons breastfed, except for Omar who refused from day one," he said wistfully.

"God was preparing us and we had no idea."

Israeli air raids have killed 200 people including 59 children in the besieged coastal enclave since last Monday.

On the Israeli side, the rockets of Palestinian armed groups have killed 10 people.

Hadidi accused Israel of deliberately targeting children.

"What have they done to deserve being bombed without any warning to evacuate the home?"

Israel claims it is targeting armed militants, including from the Islamist Hamas group running the Gaza Strip.

But human rights groups have repeatedly condemned strikes that have killed women and children in the overcrowded territory of some 2 million inhabitants.

The Gaza-based Mezan Centre for Human Rights says 341 residential units have been damaged in the aerial bombardment.

Even with air strikes ongoing, Hadidi said he was waiting for his baby to be declared well enough for him to take him home.

"I will care for him and bring him up on my own," he said.

Egypt pledges $500 mn to rebuild Gaza, sends medical aid
Cairo (AFP) May 18, 2021 - Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi pledged Tuesday $500 million to help reconstruction efforts in Gaza, his office said, after a week of Israeli air strikes on the Palestinian enclave.

"Egypt will provide $500 million... for the reconstruction process in the Gaza Strip as a result of recent events, with expert Egyptian construction companies implementing the rebuilding," the presidency said in a statement.

Cairo has sought to mediate a ceasefire between Gaza's Islamist rulers Hamas and Israel since the deadly violence erupted on May 10.

Since then, Israeli air strikes have killed more than 200 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Twelve people have been killed on the Israeli side, according to authorities in the Jewish state.

Sisi is holding talks in Paris with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron and Jordan's King Abdullah II aimed at seeking a rapid truce to the lethal conflict.

Egypt also sent 65 tonnes of medical aid to neighbouring Gaza, its healthy ministry said.

With hospitals in Gaza overwhelmed by patients, the critical surgical supplies include specialist burns treatment as well as "ventilators, oxygen tanks (and) syringes," Health Minister Hala Zayed said late Monday.

Sisi on Sunday ordered the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt -- the enclave's only border point not controlled by Israel -- to open to allow wounded Gazans to be treated in Egyptian hospitals and to deliver aid.

Sources at Rafah on Tuesday said that 26 trucks of food had been sent to Gaza, with 50 ambulances ready to transport the wounded.

Egypt said it would make space in 11 hospitals nationwide at a capacity of over 1,800 beds.

Israel launched its aerial bombing campaign on Gaza after Hamas fired a barrage of rockets in response to unrest in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem.

The Israeli strikes have killed 213 people, including 61 children, and wounded more than 1,400 in Gaza, according to the health ministry.

The UN says nearly 40,000 Gazans have been displaced and 2,500 have lost their homes.

Strikes have knocked out the only Covid-19 testing laboratory in the blockaded enclave, the health ministry has said.

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Thailand seeking 'humanitarian' solution for detained Myanmar journalists
Bangkok (AFP) May 11, 2021
Thailand said Tuesday it was seeking a "humanitarian" solution for three Myanmar journalists arrested after fleeing across the border to escape a junta crackdown. The trio's employer - the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) - and the Thai foreign correspondents' club urged the authorities not to deport them, warning their lives could be in danger if they returned to the coup-hit country. Myanmar has been in turmoil since the military ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi on February 1, triggeri ... read more