Medicine for hostages, civilians bound for Gaza after night of deadly strikes
PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES (AFP) – Deliveries of medicine for Israeli hostages and Palestinian civilians were expected to start arriving in Gaza on Wednesday under a deal mediated by Qatar and France, after a night of deadly bombardments in the territory’s south.
Militants took around 250 hostages during the bloody October 7 attacks that touched off the war, and around 132 are still in Gaza, including at least 27 believed to have been killed.
The fate of those remaining in captivity has gripped Israeli society, while a broader humanitarian crisis in the besieged territory marked by the threat of famine and disease has fueled international calls for a ceasefire.
In a statement to the official Qatar News Agency (QNA), Doha on Tuesday announced a 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”.
Qatari foreign ministry spokesman Majid Al-ansari told QNA the medicine and aid would leave Doha on Wednesday for the Egyptian city of El-arish before being transported to the Gaza Strip.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office confirmed the deal.
Forty-five hostages are expected to receive medication under the agreement, according to the French presidency.
After the drugs arrive at a hospital in the southern Gaza border town of Rafah on Wednesday, it said, they will be received by the International Committee of the Red Cross, divided into batches and immediately transferred to the hostages.
Hamas released dozens of hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel during a November ceasefire mediated by Qatar, which hosts the group’s political office.
US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Tuesday he was “hopeful” that Qatar-brokered talks could lead to another such deal “soon”.
‘Nothing but remains’
The war in Gaza began with Hamas’s unprecedented October attack that resulted in about 1,140 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
At least 24,285 Palestinians, about 70 percent of them women and children, have been killed in Gaza in Israeli bombardments and ground operations since, according to the territory’s health ministry.
The ministry reported early Wednesday that another 81 people were killed in overnight strikes, including in the main southern city of Khan Yunis.
The United Nations says the war has displaced roughly 85 percent of Gaza’s 2.4 million people, many of whom have been forced to crowd into shelters and struggle to get food, water, fuel and medical care.
Just before midnight on Tuesday, witnesses reported strikes on the Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis, sparking panic among the hundreds of displaced people seeking shelter there.
Earlier in the day, residents of the city sifted through the rubble from strikes as trucks and carts stacked high with displaced families’ possessions rolled down the street.
“You can see the destruction. This room was inhabited by people, this one was inhabited by 20 children, women and men, and the same thing goes for the neighboring houses in the whole camp,” resident Mohamad Ramadan told AFP, gesturing at a destroyed home where he said several people had been killed.
“These men can still find some of their body parts, nothing but remains torn apart,” he added.
In Tel Aviv, anti-war protesters scuffled with police on Tuesday night, as some held up signs reading “End the siege” and “Stop the genocide”.
“The occupation leads to bloodshed, and it continues incessantly. The children growing up now in Gaza are the ones who will confront us in a few years,” protester Chava Lerman told AFP.
“Civilians are getting killed by the Israeli bombings,” said fellow protester Michal Sapri. “It leads to nothing. Our hostages are still there. We’re not going to release them (through) more military power.”
The Israeli public has kept up intense pressure on Netanyahu’s government to secure the return of the hostages, with officials repeatedly insisting military pressure is necessary to bring about any kind of deal.