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Israel ‘Praying’ Medicines Brought to Gaza Will Reach Hostages
Israeli President Isaac Herzog looks on during a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, not pictured, in Washington, DC, on October 25, 2022. Stefani Reynolds/Pool via REUTERS
Israel is praying that an emergency shipment brought to the Gaza border through Egypt, in a deal arranged by Qatar and France, will reach hostages held by Hamas in the besieged Palestinian enclave, Israeli President Isaac Herzog said on Thursday.
“We are praying that all the medication …. will reach them, but that’s only the beginning,” Herzog told the World Economic Forum in Davos, sitting next to a picture of the youngest of the 132 hostages, one-year-old Kfir Bibas.
Herzog, whose role is largely ceremonial, repeated his government’s stand that the Gaza war must result in the removal of the ruling Palestinian Islamist faction Hamas, which carried out a shock cross-border rampage in southern Israel on Oct 7.
While saying he was not shying away from the “human tragedy” inflicted on Gaza civilians, Herzog cast the Israeli offensive as a step towards more peaceful relations with the Palestinians in the future, and as bolstering global security.
Herzog called on world powers to help in post-war Gaza and noted that, before the Hamas attack, Israel had been on a path to establishing relations with Saudi Arabia after doing so in 2020 with Gulf neighbors United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
“We all understand that there has to be a vision, and I think part of it should be also going back to the normalization process of Israel and its neighbors in the region. I think it’s part of a package,” he said.
“But that requires to support Israel‘s efforts to undermine the capabilities of Hamas, and it’s still there.”
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Israel to Resume Airdrop Aid to Gaza on Saturday, Military Says
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
Israel will resume airdrop aid to Gaza on Saturday night, the Israeli military said, a few days after more than 100 aid agencies warned that mass starvation was spreading across the enclave.
“The airdrops will include seven pallets of aid containing flour, sugar, and canned food to be provided by international organizations,” the military added in a statement.
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Trump Says Hamas ‘Didn’t Want to Make a Deal,’ Now Likely to Get ‘Hunted Down’
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 8, 2025. Photo: Kevin Lamarque via Reuters Connect.
i24 News – US President Donald Trump on Friday said the Palestinian jihadists of Hamas did not want to make a deal on a ceasefire and hostage release in Gaza.
“Now we’re down to the final hostages, and they know what happens after you get the final hostages. And basically because of that, they really didn’t want to make a deal,” Trump said.
The comments followed statements by Middle East peace envoy Steve Witkoff and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the effect that Israel was now considering “alternative” options to achieve its goals of bringing its hostages home from Gaza and ending the terror rule of Hamas in the coastal enclave.
Trump added he believed Hamas leaders would now be “hunted down.”
On Thursday, Witkoff said the Trump administration had decided to bring its negotiating team home for consultations following Hamas’s latest proposal. Witkoff said overnight that Hamas was to blame for the impasse, with Netanyahu concurring.
Trump also dismissed the significance of French President Emmanuel Macron’s announcement that Paris would become the first major Western power to recognize an independent Palestinian state.
Macron’s comments, “didn’t carry any weight,” the US leader said.
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Italy’s Meloni: Recognizing Palestinian State Before It Is Established May Be ‘Counterproductive’
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida, Feb. 26, 2022. Source: Wikimedia Commons.
Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Saturday that recognizing the State of Palestine before it is established could be counterproductive.
“I am very much in favor of the State of Palestine but I am not in favor of recognizing it prior to establishing it,” Meloni told Italian daily La Repubblica.
“If something that doesn’t exist is recognized on paper, the problem could appear to be solved when it isn’t,” Meloni added.
France’s decision to recognize a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly in September drew condemnation from Israel and the United States, amid the war in Gaza between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas.
On Friday, Italy’s foreign minister said recognition of a Palestinian state must occur simultaneously with recognition of Israel by the new Palestinian entity.
A German government spokesperson said on Friday that Berlin was not planning to recognize a Palestinian state in the short term and said its priority now is to make “long-overdue progress” towards a two-state solution.
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