The infant, who weighed little more than a pound, had at best a 10 percent chance of survival, said Ziv Farber, a spokesman for the Nahariya Hospital.

When she was born Monday, doctors pronounced the girl stillborn and she was taken to the hospital morgue. Her father, Ali Majdub, said five hours later his wife expressed a desire to say one last goodbye to the child.

"When we unwrapped the baby to see her, she realized it was moving," Majdub told Channel 2. "I began screaming and ran with it toward the doctors."

The baby was placed in the neonatal intensive care unit.

Dr. Moshe Daniel, the hospital's executive director, said the Health Ministry will decide whether an investigation is needed. He said adults have been known to revive after almost freezing to death because the cold slowed down their metabolism and oxygen use, but he had never heard of a similar phenomenon with a baby.