Qatar and France mediated an agreement between Hamas and Israel to deliver much-needed humanitarian aid supplies to civilians in the Gaza Strip in exchange for delivering medical supplies to the Israeli hostages in the blockaded enclave.

The announcement was made by Qatar's foreign minister spokesman on Tuesday.

Medications and aid will leave Doha Wednesday to the Egyptian city of Arish in preparation for their transport into the Gaza Strip, the foreign ministry spokesman Majed Al Ansari said.

He did not give details on how much aid or what aid would be delivered to civilians.

Earlier, Philippe Lalliot, head of France's foreign ministry crisis center which organizes aid efforts, said negotiations had been going on for weeks and the initial idea had come from the families of some of the Israeli hostages.

Specific medical packages for several months, which were put together in France, would be delivered to each of the 45 hostages. The International Committee of the Red Cross will coordinate on the ground.

France still has three nationals held in Gaza, but none of them are in urgent need of medication, Lalliot said.

Meanwhile, the White House said the U.S. was "hopeful" that talks brokered by Qatar could lead to a new deal between Israel and Hamas to release hostages in exchange for a cease-fire in Gaza.

"I don't want to say too much publicly here as we have these talks, but we're hopeful that it can bear fruit, and bear fruit soon," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told a briefing on Tuesday.

Last week, the U.N. deplored Israel's systematic blocking of humanitarian aid into Gaza, as hospitals, already devastated by Israel's relentless attacks, struggle to treat patients.

After planning aid missions to the north, U.N. agencies said their convoys were subjected to slow and unpredictable inspections and then a near-systematic refusal from the Israeli side to proceed.

The U.N. has long described desperate scenes in the few barely functioning hospitals in the north, facing severe shortages of food, clean water, medicines and fuel.