Hamas is expected to release 10 Israeli hostages Friday as the first part of the deal for what could be the eventual release of some 98 women and children goes into effect, marked by a 10 a.m. start Thursday of the first-ever pause to the Gaza war that could last up to nine days.
Hezbollah is not included in the deal and cross-border violence on Israel’s North does not impact it.
The contentious deal that the government approved at 2:30 a.m. on Wednesday, the 47th day of the war, could allow for all 40 of the children and 58 of the women that Hamas has held since it seized over 239 captives during its infiltration of southern Israel on October 7.
It’s unclear if the first 10 captives freed would be handed over to Israel at 10 a.m. or slightly later. It’s even possible that their release could take place in the afternoon.
Only once the hostages are in Israel will the families be notified, to avoid raising false hopes among the relatives of the captives to be freed.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged that the war to eliminate Hamas would continue once the hostage deal was completed.
“The war continues, we will continue it until we achieve all our objectives,” he said. This includes freeing all the captives, eliminating Hamas and to ensure that the day after Hamas there won’t be an entity that supports or educate for terror.
“Gaza won’t pose a threat to Israel,” he said, adding that,“We will continue to fight until there is complete victory.”
Netanyahu also pledged that all the hostages would be released, including the two Israeli captives Hamas has held since 2014 and 2015 — Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed. He also referenced the two soldiers believed killed in the 2014 Gaza war Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul.
“We will return everyone home. And when I say everyone I mean everyone,” he said.
Netanyahu thanks Biden for help, says he pushed Biden to expand it
Netanyahu thanked US President Joe Biden for his efforts and took credit for pushing Biden to expand the counters of the deal.
Biden, who along with top officials in his administration, was heavily involved in arranging the deal, posted a note of gratitude on X for the conclusion of the deal.
“I’m gratified that these brave souls, who have endured an unspeakable ordeal, will be reunited with their families once this deal is fully implemented,” Biden wrote.
Some of those held hostage have dual Israeli-American citizenship.
“As president, I have no higher priority than ensuring the safety of Americans held hostage around the world,” Biden stated. “And I will not stop until they are all released.”
An Israeli official told reporters on Wednesday that Biden played a significant role in expanding the scope of the deal by opening up the possibility of freeing all the children and women, save for five female soldiers.
Uncharted territory for Israel
The deal’s execution sends Israel into unchartered territory as it seeks to implement a mechanism that at its core is designed to ensure the release of 50 Israeli women and children in stages over four days, during which the Gaza war will be paused. This includes a halt to all Hamas rocket fire into Israel.
“The first day will provide a model for how to operate this,” an Israeli official explained.
At a bare minimum, it must be 10 hostages a day, but the group would have to be larger than that to hit the 50 mark within four days.
Israel will, in exchange, release 150 Palestinian women and – mostly – minors under 18 jailed for involvement or suspected involvement in security-related offenses.
The mechanism dictates that three Palestinian prisoners will be freed for every one Israeli captive. With the hope that this deal would allow the release of all Israeli children and civilian women captives in Gaza, Israel’s prison services have posted a list of 300 jailed Palestinian women and minors who could be freed.
Once the first 50 hostages are freed, the two sides can agree that an additional 10 Israeli hostages can be freed in exchange for an additional 24-hour pause and the release of 30 Palestinian prisoners.
“There is a good chance that more than 50 captives will be freed,” an Israeli officer told reporters on Wednesday, adding that the deal is unlikely to exceed 98 and will probably not include more than 80.
The deal is limited to women and children and does not include male hostages, he said. Of the first 50 captives, only 30 will be children, the official said, explaining that Hamas would need more than the initial four days to produce the remaining 10 children.
“Hamas doesn’t know where all the children and their mothers are,” the official stated.
This is one of the reasons, he explained, that a mechanism was created to extend the deal. It’s presumed that Hamas is holding most of the hostages, he said.
Children will be released with mothers, but likely not with fathers
All the children who are being held with their mothers will be released together with that parent, the official said. But it is likely that a father would not be released with his child, even if he is the sole parent.
On Wednesday night Hamas is expected to provide Qatar, who mediated the deal, with a list of the hostages to be released. Qatar is expected to hand it to Mossad Chief David Barnea and IDF Maj.-Gen. (res.) Nitzan Alon, who are in Qatar to evaluate the list, according to media reports.
According to an Israeli official, the list of hostages and jailed Palestinians to be released will be handed on a daily basis to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which will then transfer it to the other sides.
Hamas will hand over the hostages to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which will then transfer them to Israel, likely through the Rafah Crossing. The hostages will then be taken to Israeli hospitals where they will be reunited with their families.
Netanyahu in his press conference stressed that the deal also allowed for the Red Cross to visit all the hostages not included in the deal and to provide them with needed medicines.
Israel’s military campaign to oust Hamas from Gaza was sparked by the October 7 attack in which the terror group killed over 1,200 people in southern Israel.
Hamas has asserted that over 14,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, in war-related violence.
The high death count combined with vivid photographs and videos of the dead and wounded has prompted many in the international community to call on Israel to permanently halt its Gaza campaign.
Jordan’s King Abdullah headed on Wednesday to Cairo for talks with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al Sisi on how to end “Israel’s aggression against the Palestinians,” a palace statement said.
The talks will focus on how to turn the four-day agreed-upon truce into a permanent ceasefire that brings an end to the Israeli bombardment of Gaza and averts a humanitarian catastrophe, an official told Reuters.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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