Qatar and France help broker aid deal for hostages
Qatar and France have brokered a deal with Israel and Hamas to deliver urgent medication to some 45 Israeli hostages held by the group in Gaza in return for humanitarian and medical aid for the most vulnerable civilians.
The two countries said the aid would leave Qatar for Egypt on Wednesday before being taken across the Rafah border crossing.
Majed al-Ansari, a Qatari foreign ministry spokesperson, said the deal would mean “medicine along with other humanitarian aid is to be delivered to civilians in the Gaza Strip, in the most affected and vulnerable areas, in exchange for delivering medication needed for Israeli captives in Gaza.”
The Biden administration welcomed the announcement.
Israeli military says it killed top militant in West Bank strike
The Israeli army said it killed a top Palestinian militant in an air strike in the occupied West Bank early Wednesday, averting a “terrorist attack” he was planning.
Ahmed Abdullah Abu Shalal had been responsible for a “number of terrorist attacks” over the past year, including one in annexed east Jerusalem, the army said.
He was “eliminated in a precision air strike,” it said in a statement that had a video link showing the strike on a vehicle.
The Palestinian health ministry in Ramallah said the body of an “unidentified martyr killed by the occupation (Israel) in a bombing of a vehicle” had been received by a hospital in Nablus.
The army said Abu Shalal was killed following intelligence “of his cell’s intentions of carrying out an imminent terrorist attack”.
The army did not offer details, but said he was responsible for carrying out a shooting in the Shimon HaTzadik neighbourhood of east Jerusalem in April last year in which two residents were wounded.