Hostage exchange deal to be green-lit in Israeli gov’t meeting this evening

The Israeli war cabinet, the regular cabinet and the government will convene on Tuesday evening and are expected to confirm a deal to free dozens of Israeli hostages being held by Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip, the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement.

“I do not think that it is necessary to belabor the point, not even now, but I hope there will be good news soon,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday afternoon.

“In light of the developments regarding the release of our hostages,” Netanyahu will convene all three institutions, starting Tuesday evening at 6 p.m. The deal can only be confirmed by the government, which will meet at 8 p.m.

The execution of the deal is expected to begin this weekend, Army Radio reported, and will be carried out in several stages.

In the first stage, 50 Israeli hostages will be released in exchange for 140 terrorists sitting in Israeli jails. Earlier reports indicated that the focus will be on Israeli mothers and their children, in exchange for female and under-age 18 Palestinian prisoners.

A senior Israeli official told Army Radio it is estimated that around 80 hostages of Israel's hostages fit the conditions agreed on by both sides, which includes women and children, but not soldiers.

Channel 12 news also reported that Israel insisted that all the freed hostages be Israeli citizens.

A fire pause of five days will follow, with the agreement being that Hamas will aim to locate more of the hostages during those days, as it previously claimed not to know the whereabouts of many kidnapped Israelis. For every additional 10 freed hostages, Israel will grant one more day of fire pause.

The Qatari government acted as a mediator and will reportedly guarantee the deal.

The signs of an impending agreement had increased during the last few days, with U.S. President Joe Biden saying that a deal was getting closer on Monday, and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh confirming the news publicly on Tuesday morning.

Netanyahu and the war cabinet met with the hostages’ family members on Monday evening to talk about a possible deal.

Representatives of the families had lobbied for days to meet with war cabinet members and hear from them in person about the negotiations to exchange some of the nearly 240 captives that Hamas terrorists kidnapped into Gaza on Oct. 7.