Hamas’s armed wing on Monday published a list of 20 surviving hostages held in Gaza They are expected to be released as part of a deal reached with Israel.
The hostages named by the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades on their Telegram channel are among the 48 captivesboth alive and deceased, held by Palestinian militants in Gaza since the attack on Israeli territory on October 7, 2023.
Tel Aviv woke up expectant, with hundreds of people already gathered in the city’s Hostage Square, before the release of the captives by Hamas, which according to the Israeli press will begin at 8:00 local time (5:00 GMT), and the subsequent visit of the president of the United States, Donald Trump.
Before dawn, Israelis were already waving in this square in Tel Aviv, which has been hosting rallies for two years. and various events to ask the hostages to return home, Israeli flags, posters with the faces of the captives and Trump, as well as phrases such as “A new day will rise” and “Peace in Israel.”
First round of releases
According to the Israeli channel N12, the first round of releases of the live hostages (estimated at around 20) is expected to take place at 8:00 am local time.l in the area of Gaza’s Netzarim corridor, a line that divides the strip from east to west below its capital.
SubsequentlyAt 10:00 a.m. local time, Hamas and the Palestinian militias will liberate the rest in the Khan Younis area (southern Strip) and in the camps in central Gaza.
Shortly before this second delivery, Trump is expected to land at the Tel Aviv airport, on a brief four-hour visit to Israel that will be the first of his term.
Trump’s agenda
The American president will be transferred to Jerusalem under heavy security measures (the highway that connects this city with Tel Aviv will be closed to traffic for several hours), and once in the holy city he will meet with relatives of the hostages and give a speech in English before the Knesset (Parliament).
From there he will leave for Egypt to attend the formal signing of the ceasefire agreement for Gaza between Israel and Hamas promoted by the United States, a mediator country in the conflict.
The liberation plan is for the militias to hand over the hostages to the Red Cross within the Palestinian enclave, which will transfer them into the hands of the Israeli Army. This in turn will take them to the Reim base, located next to the border with Gaza and already on Israeli soil, where they will undergo a health evaluation and they will be able to reunite with their families.
Hostages will go to hospitals
From there, they will be transferred by helicopter to three hospitals on the outskirts of Tel Aviv: ten to Sheba Hospital, five to Beilinson and another five to Ichilov.
The delivery of the bodies of the 28 dead hostages still in Gaza is also expected, but it is unknown if it will be simultaneous or just after the return of the living.
The Red Cross will deliver the mortal remains to the troops in Gaza and a “brief ceremony” and Jewish prayer will take place within the Palestinian enclave.
The bodies will be transported in coffins covered by the Israeli flag and transferred to the Abu Kabir forensic institute in Tel Aviv, where the process of identifying the bodies and notifying families will begin so that they can celebrate the burials.
The Israeli Government assumes the possibility that Hamas will not hand over all the bodies this Monday as it has not been able to locate them. For this reason, the ceasefire agreement states that an international body will help locate the bodies of the hostages that are not found.
The Israeli military offensive in Gaza began in response to the attack launched on October 7, 2023 by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, considered terrorist by the European Union and other countries.
That attack left 1,219 dead, mostly civilians, according to a report by the AFP agency based on Israeli data. The Israeli war in Gaza has killed at least 64,700 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas government’s Health Ministry that the UN considers reliable.
Keep reading:
• The 4 critical points on which peace between Hamas and Israel depends
• What Hamas and Israel agreed on and what’s coming next for Gaza
• Gaza ceasefire: Israel withdraws troops as hundreds of displaced Palestinians head north