Relief for hostages in Gaza drug deal
DOHA: A deal to allow the delivery of medicines to hostages in Gaza and aid into the wartorn territory has been agreed following mediation by Qatar and France.
Doha announced the deal “between Israel and Hamas, where medicine along with other humanitarian aid is to be delivered to civilians in Gaza … in exchange for delivering medication needed for Israeli captives in Gaza”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office confirmed the deal and said: “The medicines will be forwarded by
Qatari representatives in the Gaza Strip to their final destination.”
The drugs are intended for 45 hostages, according to the French presidency, which said 83 were initially identified as needing medication in November, but 38 have since been either released or killed.
After the medicines arrive at a hospital in the southern Gaza border town of Rafah on Wednesday, they will be received by the International Committee of the Red Cross, divided into batches and immediately transferred to the hostages.
The deliveries will go on for three months and were co-ordinated by the French foreign ministry’s crisis centre, which purchased the drugs and sent them to Doha on Saturday.
Qatar, which hosts Hamas’s political office, has led negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian militant group, having mediated a week-long break in the war in Gaza in November that included the release of scores of Israeli and foreign hostages.
Qatari foreign ministry spokesman Majid Al-Ansari told the country’s news agency QNA “the medications and aid will leave Doha tomorrow to the city of Al-Arish in the sisterly Arab Republic of Egypt, on board two Qatari Armed Forces aircraft, in preparation for their transport into the Gaza Strip”.
A diplomat briefed on the talks told AFP the deal followed a visit by the families of hostages to Qatar.