Israel doctors have separated twin girls conjoined at the head in an exceptionally rare "life or death" operation which should allow them to enjoy normal lives.

A team of dozens of Israeli medical experts managed to separate the infants after a 12-hour operation, one of only around 20 which have taken place worldwide.

"When the nurses brought the babies together, newly separated, they looked at each other, made noises, and gently touched each other, it was beautiful,” Dr Isaac Lazar told the Times of Israel in an interview on Monday.

The twins have not yet been identified but images published in Israeli media show them wearing bandages around their heads and gazing into each others' eyes.

“Any wrong decision could have been the difference between life and death," added Dr Lazar, the director of the paediatric intensive care unit at Soroka University's medical centre.

"It was so delicate, as the surgery was performed between major blood vessels in the babies’ heads. We all knew that any bleed could have catastrophic consequences.”

Israeli doctors had created 3D models of the 12-month-old twins to practice for several hundred hours, the Times of Israel reported. It is the first time that such an operation has been carried out in Israel.

The girls, who were born in August 2020, were conjoined at the back of their heads and required skin grafts, but doctors are optimistic that they can now live normal lives.

Read more on this story here: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/09/06/israeli-doctors-separate-conjoined-twins-extremely-rare-operation/

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