Hi, I'm looking for advice for a kitten we are fostering that has recently developed some aggressive habits.

Cat background: caught in the wild, we suspect it was part of a litter and later abandoned by the family, it is very used to humans. When it was rescued it was pregnant for \~2 months (she's less than one year old). The pregnancy was too risky for her and it was terminated (and she was neutered). She's been with us since after the operation.

She's been cuddly and curious since the beginning (and still is). We have always been able to playish with her and to give her scratches. In the past week she has started to "attack" us, not hard enough that she draws blood but hard enough that it hurts and breaks the skin. The attacks come out of nowhere even if we are not interacting with her. Last night she even jumped at us while we were sleeping. Usually after the attack she runs away and hides, then after 1-2 minutes she comes back and tries to cuddle with us.

If we try to scratch her head it triggers her and we are now avoiding doing that and even we are stopping our hands when around her, but she still attacks sometimes.

As an example, one attack I just had: I was reading an article on my phone on the sofa, she came over, the moment I looked at her, her eyes went full wide, within 5 seconds she lounged at my knee and bit. Then she ran to the corner, looked at me (the tail is fully fluffed out as if she is scared) and after 30 seconds she came back to the sofa, rested against me and started purring. Now she is sleeping.

We have not done anything aggressive to her since the beginning, at most we have moved her when correcting a behavior (as in, if she scratches the bed or the sofa we moved her to the scratch pole and we gave her a treat if she scratched the pole), so I don't know where this is coming from. It is also our first cat so we are a bit lost.

Any help?

PD: this is her right after the attack, she just went to take a nap.

Advice for foster kitten with sudden aggression