But the implementation of the deal, set to go into effect this week, is taking place amid intense distrust, skepticism and concern.
The swap was originally scheduled to go into effect Thursday, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said Wednesday that “the release will begin according to the original agreement between the parties, and not before Friday.”
“There’s certainly no good faith when you’re negotiating with Hamas, a terrorist group that is holding toddlers and babies as hostage,” a senior U.S. official said in a call with reporters to provide details on the contours of the deal.
The Israeli government said that the first group of hostages — identified as women and children — will be released over a period of four days, “during which a pause in the fighting will be held.”
Hamas is believed to be holding more than 200 hostages in the Gaza Strip, after kidnapping them during an unprecedented terrorist attack against Israel on Oct. 7.
However, Biden administration officials have raised questions about whether Hamas knows where the remaining hostages are. Both the U.S. and Israel say Hamas should use the pause in fighting to deliver a full accounting, and offered to extend the ceasefire if additional hostages are released.
Humanitarian aid deliveries to the Gaza Strip are expected to scale up absent the threat of bombs and gunshots, although aid groups say it won’t be nearly enough to meet the overwhelming need in the besieged enclave.
Israel has rejected calls and pressure for any long-term ceasefire, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that the pause in fighting does not mean that Israel is giving up its war goal of eliminating Hamas’s base in Gaza.
Thousands of Palestinians have been killed over the more than six-weeks of war, hundreds of thousands injured and hundreds of thousands displaced.
Aid groups have issued desperate appeals for a more substantial ceasefire, which they say is necessary to actually curb the suffering in Gaza.
Read the full report at TheHill.com.
