The release of hostages held by terror groups in the Gaza Strip is expected to begin early Monday morning, the Prime Minister’s Office announced on Sunday.
Israel has told the families of hostages that it expects them to be released starting from between 4 a.m. and 6 a.m., but that the timing could change, The Times of Israel learned.
Israel will be informed by the Red Cross two hours before hostages are to be released.
US President Donald Trump is due in Israel at 9:20 a.m. on Monday, for a visit lasting less than four hours, during which he will meet with ex-hostages and families of hostages and speak in the Knesset. He will then head to a summit in Egypt that is set to endorse his full Gaza peace plan.
Hamas is required to release all 48 hostages — 20 living and 28 believed to be dead — by Monday at noon. However, the terror group has said it will not be able to locate all the dead hostages within that deadline, and Israel is aware of this. Prime Minister’s Office spokeswoman Shosh Bedrosian said on Sunday afternoon that once Israel confirms it has received all the hostages it is expecting to receive — a likely indication that it knows which dead hostages Hamas will not be able to hand over on Monday — it will begin to free nearly 2,000 Palestinian security prisoners in exchange, including 250 life-termers.
A senior Hamas official was cited by Al Jazeera as saying that the hostages will be released from three different locations in the Gaza Strip, apparently referring to the living hostages.
The unnamed official did not say when the release would take place, but noted that Hamas representatives will meet Sunday night with representatives of the Red Cross to agree on a mechanism for the hostages’ release. The official added that Hamas had finished counting the hostages and moving them to various sites across the Strip in preparation for their release.
Meanwhile, some families of dead hostages have been told by authorities that the bodies of their loved ones may not be returned on Monday, or in the first stage of the current deal, several Hebrew media outlets reported, without citing sources.
Officials have estimated that not all the remains will be easy to find in Gaza, and that locating all of them may take time.
The reports indicated that Hamas has provided information on the specific bodies the terror group has lost track of.
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