The release of the Israeli hostages, kidnapped by Hamas on October 7, 2023 and since then held in Gaza, will begin this Monday, October 13, three days after the entry into force of a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel.
“In accordance with the signed agreement, the prisoner exchange should begin on Monday morning as agreed, and there is no news on this,” Osama Hamdane, a senior Hamas official, told AFP on Saturday, October 11.
48 people, 20 of whom are presumed alive, remain captive, while Israel, for its part, holds nearly 2,000 Palestinians, 250 of whom are presented as “detained for security reasons” by the IDF.
There is no ceremony planned
The live Hamas hostages will be handed over to members of the Red Cross before being transferred to a specially prepared unit of the Israeli army. A helicopter is ready in the Gaza Strip for the direct transfer of the most serious cases to the Beersheba hospital. At the moment no hostage handover ceremony is planned, indicates the Israeli army.
If their health allows, the hostages will be transferred to the military base in Reim, where their closest family awaits them, and then to three hospitals in Tel Aviv (Ichilov, Sheba and Beilinson). Starting Monday, the Israeli military says it expects a group return of the 20 live hostages.
However, according to several Israeli media, the 20 live hostages could be released overnight from Sunday to Monday, even before Donald Trump’s scheduled arrival on Israeli soil on Monday morning.
Up to 48 hours to identify bodies
As for the dead hostages, the coffins will be inspected first by the military for security reasons.
These victims will receive a quick military tribute ceremony, during which the coffins will be covered with the Israeli flag.
The procession will be escorted by police to the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute in Tel Aviv, while identification of the bodies is expected to take between 10 and 48 hours.
In the context of peace negotiations
The release of the hostages occurs in a key context of peace negotiations, while on Monday a “peace summit” will be held in Egypt with the leaders of twenty countries around the American and Egyptian presidents.
To this end, Hamas has mentioned on several occasions in 2025 a gradual dismantlement of its arsenal (stopping the production of new rockets, destruction of tunnels towards Israel, etc.), but on condition that it is accompanied by a political project leading to the end of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The movement also reaffirmed that, in the absence of a Palestinian armed force, it reserved the “right to resist” the Israeli occupation.
In the Gaza Strip devastated by two years of war, Civil Defense, a first aid organization operating under the authority of Hamas, announced on Saturday that more than 500,000 displaced people had returned to the north of the territory since the ceasefire came into effect on Friday. The agreement between the belligerents is based on a twenty-point plan announced at the end of September by Donald Trump.
Source: BFM TV
