A shipment of medicine for dozens of hostages held by Hamas as well as Palestinians was en route to Gaza on Wednesday after France and Qatar mediated the first agreement between Israel and the militant group since a weeklong ceasefire in November.
The medicines arrived in Egypt and were on the way to the border, Egyptian officials confirmed. A senior Hamas official said that for every box provided for the hostages, 1,000 boxes would be sent in for Palestinians. The deal also includes the delivery of humanitarian aid to residents of the besieged coastal enclave.
France said it took months to organize the shipment of the medicines. Qatar, which has long served as a mediator with Hamas, helped broker the deal, which will provide three months' worth of medication for chronic illnesses for 45 of the hostages, as well as other medicine and vitamins. Several older men are among the remaining hostages held in Gaza.
Moussa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas official, said in a post on X that the International Committee of the Red Cross will deliver all the medicines, including the ones destined for the hostages, to hospitals serving all parts of Gaza.
Senior UN officials have warned that Gaza faces widespread famine and disease without more aid. UN officials say aid delivery is hobbled by the opening of too few border crossings, a slow vetting process and continued fighting.
The agreement came more than 100 days into a conflict that is sparking tensions across the Middle East, with an array of strikes and counterstrikes in recent days from northern Iraq to the Red Sea and from southern Lebanon to Pakistan.
Palestinian militants are still putting up resistance across Gaza in the face of one of the deadliest military campaigns in recent history. Some 85 per cent of the narrow coastal territory's 2.3 million people have fled their homes, and the United Nations says a quarter of the population is starving. Only about a third of Gaza's hospitals remain operational and some only partially.
Regional unrest
Israel has vowed to dismantle Hamas's military and governing abilities to ensure the group can never repeat an attack like the one on Oct. 7 that triggered the war. Militants burst through Israel's border defences and killed 1,200 people, including several Canadians, while abducting 253 others, according to an updated tally from the Israeli government. Israel says 132 hostages are still in Gaza.
Gaza's Health Ministry says 24,285 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the war. The ministry does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths, but says around two-thirds of those killed were women and children. More than 60,000 people have been wounded, and less than half of Gaza's hospitals are even partially functioning.
Hamas has said it will not release any more hostages until there is a permanent ceasefire, something Israel and the United States, its top ally, have ruled out.
In the past few days, a U.S.-led coalition has carried out strikes against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen; Iran has struck what it claimed was an Israeli spy headquarters in northern Iraq and anti-Iran militants in Pakistan and Syria; and Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah have escalated the intensity of their fighting across that shared border.
Iran's militant allies across the region say they are striking U.S. and Israeli targets to pressure the two countries to halt the Gaza offensive, with the Houthis vowing to continue attacking international shipping in the Red Sea in what they say is a blockade of Israel, with repercussions for global trade.
On Wednesday, Israeli airstrikes killed nine Palestinians in two areas of the occupied West Bank, medics said, and the Israeli military described at least five of the dead as militants suspected of planning an imminent attack.
Heavy fighting in Gaza
Israel said at the start of the year that it had largely dismantled Hamas in northern Gaza and would scale back operations there, focusing on dense urban areas in the centre and south of the territory.
People in and around the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis fled as tanks approached the district overnight on Wednesday following an Israeli army statement that it had come under fire from the area. Palestinian health officials said seven people were killed by Israeli airstrikes that damaged homes near the hospital.
As well, the Jordanian army said on Wednesday its military field hospital in Khan Younis was badly damaged as a result of Israeli shelling in the vicinity.
Israel says its forces have killed roughly 9,000 militants, and that 193 of its own soldiers have been killed in the Gaza offensive, including two in the past 24 hours.
