HOSTAGE LIST
Netanyahu’s demand for a list of the first three hostages, who were to be released in the hours following the ceasefire, came an hour before the deadline.
“The prime minister instructed the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) that the ceasefire, which is supposed to go into effect at 8.30am, will not begin until Israel has the list of released abductees that Hamas has pledged to provide,” his office said on Sunday.
Hamas said the delay was “technical” but that the hostages’ names could be released very soon.
The three-stage ceasefire agreement followed months of on-off negotiations brokered by Egypt, Qatar and the United States, and came just ahead of the Jan 20 inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump.
Its first stage will last six weeks, during which 33 of the remaining 98 hostages – women, children, men over 50, the ill and wounded – will be released in return for almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
They include 737 male, female and teen-aged prisoners, some of whom are members of militant groups convicted of attacks that killed dozens of Israelis, as well as hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza in detention since the start of the war.
The first three are female hostages expected to be released through the Red Cross on Sunday. In return for each, 30 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails are to be released.
Under the terms of the deal, Hamas will inform the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) where the meeting point will be inside Gaza and the ICRC is expected to begin driving to that location to collect the hostages, an official involved in the process told Reuters.
ENDING THE WAR?
After Sunday’s hostage release, lead US negotiator Brett McGurk said, the accord calls for four more female hostages to be freed after seven days, followed by the release of three further hostages every seven days thereafter.
US President Joe Biden’s team worked closely with Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff to push the deal over the line.
As his inauguration approached, Trump had repeated his demand that a deal be done swiftly, warning repeatedly that there would be “hell to pay” if the hostages were not released.
But what will come next in Gaza remains unclear in the absence of a comprehensive agreement on the postwar future of the enclave, which will require billions of dollars and years of work to rebuild.
And although the stated aim of the ceasefire is to end the war entirely, it could easily unravel.
Hamas, which has controlled Gaza for almost two decades, has survived despite losing its top leadership and thousands of fighters.
Israel has vowed it will not allow Hamas to return to power and has cleared large stretches of ground inside Gaza, in a step widely seen as a move towards creating a buffer zone that will allow its troops to act freely against threats in the enclave.
In Israel, the return of the hostages may ease some of the public anger against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing government over the Oct 7 security failure that led to the deadliest single day in the country’s history.
