A special shipment entered Gaza on Wednesday evening, January 17, with five truckloads of humanitarian aid: medicine for 45 of the 132 hostages still held captive by Hamas. The journey of negotiations that made this possible was a long one. It began in Israel, then passed through France and Qatar, to finally reach the enclave ravaged by the war between Israel and the Islamist organization.
It all began with David Sprecher, a lawyer specializing in aviation law and admitted to the Brussels and Israeli bars. He is a member of the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum, an Israeli non-governmental organization that coordinates the mobilization around the 250 or so people to have been kidnapped during the October 7 Hamas attack. In the aftermath of the massacre, which resulted in the deaths of some 1,140 people, this French-speaking lawyer was appointed to head the forum's activities in France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the European Union. In October 2023, he brought three families of missing persons to Europe, including the nephew of an Israeli hostage who was suffering from a brain pathology. "I set myself a mission: To provide the hostages with medicine," said Sprecher.
The lawyer explained that he had been put in touch with President Emmanuel Macron, who directed him to the crisis and support center at the French foreign ministry, headed by Philippe Lalliot. An initial list of medication drawn up by Dr. Hagai Levine of the Forum was then submitted to the crisis center. 85 captives were selected before the first truce – which lasted from November 23 to December 1, 2023 – enabled the release of 105 hostages; the list was then reduced to 45. The medicine was purchased, gathered and packaged in France. For Sprecher, the medication needed to be supplied by France, not by Israeli, so as not to arouse Hamas' mistrust. The parcel was then sent to Qatar on Saturday in a diplomatic bag.
At the same time, Doha made contact with the Islamist organization. The latter would trade the delivery of aid to the hostages for greater assistance to Gaza's Palestinians, who are being killed by Israeli bombings at a rate unprecedented for the 21st century – almost 25,000 victims, of whom the majority are women and children, in just over 100 days. Moussa Abu Marzouk, Hamas's foreign affairs representative, declared on X that for every box of medicine given to the hostages, a thousand would go to the Palestinians.
Israeli inspections
On Tuesday evening, the Qatari foreign ministry announced that "medicine along with other humanitarian aid is to be delivered to civilians in Gaza Strip, in the most affected and vulnerable areas, in exchange for delivering medication needed for Israeli captives in Gaza." The next morning, two planes from Qatar landed at el-Arish airport in Egypt, 40 kilometers from Gaza. Abu Marzouk asserted that it was agreed that the contents of this delivery would not be inspected by the Israeli authorities, like all goods entering the enclave. To no avail: The trucks, loaded with 11 tons of humanitarian aid, passed through the Israeli Kerem Shalom checkpoint for examination, before finally entering the enclave, where they were received by the Palestinian health ministry.
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