Medicines for hostages, fresh aid enter Gaza
Two planes arrived at Egypt’s El-Arish airport with 61 tonnes of aid provided by Doha and France, including medicine and food.
Medicine for hostages and fresh aid for civilians entered war-torn Gaza on Wednesday under a newly brokered deal, mediator Qatar said, as Israel intensified strikes on the Palestinian territory’s south.
Hamas and other militants seized about 250 hostages during the October 7 attacks on Israel, and about 132 remain in Gaza, including at least 27 believed to have been killed.
Writing on X, formerly Twitter, Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesman Majed Al Ansari said medicine for hostages and aid entered Gaza “over the past few hours” under the agreement announced on Tuesday following French and Qatari mediation.
Qatar earlier said two planes arrived in the Egyptian city of El-Arish near the Gaza border with 61 tonnes of aid provided by Doha and France, including medicine and food.
The International Committee of the Red Cross welcomed the deal, under which 45 hostages are expected to receive medication, as “a much-needed moment of relief”.
The agreement appeared to be at risk after a top Hamas official set new conditions for providing the drugs, insisting Israel must not inspect the trucks carrying them.
Musa Abu Marzuk demanded 1000 boxes of aid for Gaza for every one going to the hostages and that a country Hamas trusts, not France, supply the medicine.
But the Israeli military body responsible for civilian affairs in the Palestinian territories, COGAT, told AFP five trucks carrying medicines would undergo security inspection at the Kerem Shalom crossing.
France said the drugs would be sent to a hospital in Rafah, given to the Red Cross and divided into batches before being transferred to the hostages.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said the army was hitting Gaza’s main southern city of Khan Younis particularly hard to dismantle the Hamas leadership.
Gaza’s Hamas government earlier spoke of “the most difficult and intense night in Khan Younis since the start of the war”, with its health ministry reporting 81 deaths across the Palestinian territory.
Israel’s army announced the death of one soldier on Wednesday, bringing to 193 the total number killed in Gaza since ground operations began in late October.
Violence has also surged in the disputed West Bank since October 7 to a level not seen since the second Palestinian intifada between 2000 and 2005. Israeli army raids and attacks by settlers have killed about 365 people in the territory, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
The ministry said five people were killed inside Tulkarem refugee camp, with the Israeli military confirming an air strike that killed “a number of terrorists”.
Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, the armed wing of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party, said five of its fighters died in a strike east of the city of Nablus.
The Israeli army said it killed a Palestinian militant to avert his “imminent terrorist attack”.
AFP
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