A deal to allow the delivery of medicines to hostages in Gaza and aid into the territory has been agreed following mediation by Doha and Paris, Qatar and Israel announced on Tuesday.

In a statement to the official Qatar News Agency, Doha announced the 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.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office confirmed the deal and said: “The medicines will be forwarded by Qatari representatives in the Gaza Strip to their final destination.”

The drugs are intended for 45 hostages, according to the French presidency, which said 83 were initially identified as needing medication in November, but 38 have since been released or killed.

After the medicines arrive at a hospital in the southern Gaza border town of Rafah on Wednesday, they will be received by the International Committee of the Red Cross, divided into batches and immediately transferred to the hostages.

The deliveries will go on for three months, and were coordinated by the French foreign ministry’s crisis center, which purchased the drugs and sent them to Doha on Saturday by diplomatic pouch, said the center’s director, Philippe Lalliot.

Qatari foreign ministry spokesperson Majid Al-Ansari told QNA “the medications and aid will leave Doha tomorrow to the city of Al-Arish in the sisterly Arab Republic of Egypt, on board two Qatari Armed Forces aircrafts, in preparation for their transport into the Gaza Strip.”

A diplomat briefed on the talks told Agence France-Presse the deal followed a visit by the families of hostages to Qatar and a meeting with the Gulf nation’s prime minister.