A day after a long-awaited shipment of medicine entered the Gaza Strip, including vital drugs long sought for Israelis held hostage for over 100 days, questions surfaced Thursday around who was responsible for delivering them to the captives.

Initial reports indicated the International Committee of the Red Cross would deliver the medicine, but the ICRC released a statement on Thursday stressing that it would play no role in ensuring the drugs reach their intended destination.

“The ICRC initiated the conversation in its role as a neutral intermediary,” it said in the statement. “The parties negotiated the agreement, including how much medicines would be delivered and by whom, with Qatar brokering the deal. The mechanism that was agreed to does not involve the ICRC playing any part in its implementation, including the delivery of medication.”

The New York Times on Wednesday quoted an anonymous Middle East official and a Qatari official who said the medicine would be sent to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry “under Qatari supervision,” which would then deliver the medications to the hostages.

Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan, said on Saturday that there was a challenge concerning the “security aspect” of delivering the drugs, referring to the terror group’s apparent concerns its operatives could be tracked, but did not expand on how they would reach the hostages.

The Prime Minister’s Office did not respond to requests for comment on the delivery method within the Gaza Strip.

France, meanwhile, stressed that it had no involvement after shipping the medicine to Qatar.

“France was responsible for gathering the medicine, packaging it and shipping it to Qatar,” a French Embassy official told The Times of Israel. “The transfer from Qatar into Gaza through Egypt was managed under Qatari mediation.”

Many of the Israeli hostages held by Hamas rely on prescription drugs for chronic conditions, according to their families.

The deal, brokered by Qatar and France, includes the provision of medical supplies, food and other humanitarian aid for Palestinians in the war-torn Gaza Strip.

A senior Hamas figure said that for every box provided for the hostages, 1,000 boxes of medicine were being sent in for Palestinians.

Qatar’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson said late Wednesday that the shipments had entered the Strip.

“Over the past few hours, medicine & aid entered the Gaza Strip, in implementation of the agreement announced yesterday for the benefit of civilians in the Strip, including hostages,” Majed al-Ansari wrote on X.

He said mediation efforts were continuing.

The five trucks were inspected by Israel at the Kerem Shalom crossing point, where daily humanitarian aid for Gaza is routinely inspected.

The medical aid earmarked for the hostages has been desperately needed since their abduction on October 7, during the brutal massacre carried out by Hamas inside Israel, in which some 1,200 people were murdered and nearly 240 were kidnapped, including children and the elderly.

It is believed that 132 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza — not all of them alive — after a weeklong truce in late November that saw 105 women and children released. The captives include men in their 70s and 80s and others with chronic conditions, some of them life-threatening.

The ICRC has not gained access to visit the hostages despite urgent appeals from their loved ones and diplomatic officials for them to do so.

The entry of medical aid into Gaza is the first agreement reached by the warring sides since the week-long November hostage release deal. Efforts to negotiate another hostage deal have foundered in the time since.

In Israel, news that the trucks were initially to enter Gaza without being inspected had ignited a firestorm of criticism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had reportedly okayed the exception to standard practice, under which any goods entering Gaza are subject to Israeli checks meant to ensure they do not include smuggled arms or other contraband.

Senior Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzouk said on X Wednesday morning that the shipment of medicine entering under the deal, which was flown from Qatar to Egypt, was approved for entry into Gaza without undergoing an inspection by Israeli authorities.

Israel has maintained tight control on deliveries to Gaza since it closed off access to the Strip following the October 7 terror onslaught on southern Israel, in order to prevent Hamas from receiving supplies that could assist its military apparatus as the Israel Defense Forces wages a campaign to wipe the terror group out.

Reports in Hebrew media that Netanyahu had okayed the procedure were denied by the premier’s office, which released a statement that appeared to shift responsibility to the army. The agreement for the delivery of the medicines was brokered by Qatar in talks attended by Mossad chief David Barnea — who answers directly to the prime minister — and Maj. Gen. (res.) Nitzan Alon, the IDF’s point man for securing the hostages’ return.

“The prime minister instructed that the medicines be sent to the hostages, but did not deal at all with the security procedures that are set by the IDF and security officials,” the statement read.

According to Channel 12 news, the military said it knew nothing about the logistics of the medical aid deal, and only learned that the packages would not be inspected from remarks made by Abu Marzouk.

There was no official statement from the IDF or Defense Ministry on the matter, though the latter said it had implemented inspections on orders of the government Wednesday afternoon.

“Per the directive of the political leadership, five trucks carrying medicine will undergo a security check at the Kerem Shalom crossing,” said COGAT, a Defense Ministry body that coordinates Palestinian civil affairs.

Both Netanyahu’s political allies and opposition lawmakers had attacked the premier for ostensibly being prepared to allow the aid to enter uninspected and for attempting to pin the issue on the army.

“The responsibility for the decision, as well as for its implementation, lies with the political tier — and only us,” war cabinet minister Benny Gantz stated on X.