It is a moment so many families have waited for - reuniting with loved ones who have been held in captivity by Hamas. With 20 Israeli hostages set to come home, families are getting ready to embrace them. NBC News’ Tom Llamas reports.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel is ready to receive 48 hostages — 20 of whom are believed to be alive — as part of the first phase of a peace plan between Israel and Hamas. Hamas has pledged to release them by tomorrow in exchange for 250 prisoners serving life sentences and 1,700 Palestinians detained after the group’s Oct.
7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel.President Donald Trump is on his way to Israel, where he will address members of the Knesset before he joins a Middle East peace summit in Egypt.President Donald Trump, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney are among the heads of state attending today’s summit in Egypt. Israeli and Hamas officials would not be attending.: More than 67,000 people have been killed in Israel’s offensive on Gaza, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Large swaths of the enclave have been destroyed, andin part of northern Gaza. Around 1,200 people were killed and about 250 were taken hostage in the Oct. 7 attack on Israel.Israeli military vehicles take position at the Ofer military prison located between Ramallah and Beitunia in the occupied West Bank this morning ahead of the release of Palestinian prisoners and detainees in exchange for hostages held in Gaza.Hamas' military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, has just released the names of the 20 living hostages who are due for release. They are: Alon Ohel, Ariel Cunio and David Cunio, Avinatan Or, Bar Kupershtein, Eitan Horn, Eitan Mor, Gali Berman and Ziv Berman, Guy Gilboa-Dalal, Elkana Bohbot, Evyatar David, Matan Angrest, Matan Zangauker, Maxim Herkin, Nimrod Cohen, Omri Miran, Rom Braslavski, Segev Kalfon, and Yosef-Haim Ohana. The names match the list of hostages that were believed to be alive in Gaza. Others, about two dozen more, are believed to have died.Loved ones of the Palestinian prisoners to be released as part of the ceasefire deal have started trickling into the West Bank city of Beitunia. Possibly anticipating more checkpoints throughout the West Bank and longer journeys, they started arriving at dawn this morning. Just as it has in previous ceasefires, the Israel Defense Forces has warned people not to celebrate their loved ones’ release — a warning that has often been ignored. The International Red Cross buses have now arrived at Ofer prison and will be transporting around 100 prisoners into the West Bank. Some of them have been in prison since the 1990s and are serving multiple life sentences. The more than 1,700 detainees from Gaza to be released were captured in Gaza after the attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, and have not been charged. Among them are some women and children, doctors, nurses and journalists.President Donald Trump, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney are among the numerous heads of state attending today’s peace summit in Egypt.Jennifer Jett Iran has declined to attend a summit in Egypt marking the first phase of the Israel-Hamas peace deal, citing its recent conflict with Israel. While Tehran is “grateful” for the invitation to the summit today in the resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh, “neither President Pezeshkian nor I can engage with counterparts who have attacked the Iranian People and continue to threaten and sanction us,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi Araghchi said that Iran, which fought a 12-day war with Israel in June, continues to favor diplomatic engagement and that it welcomes any initiative to end the Israel-Hamas war. “Palestinians are fully entitled to secure their fundamental right of self-determination, and all States remain obliged, more than ever, to assist them in their lawful & legitimate cause,” he said.Trump is on his way to Israel for a brief but robust trip to the Middle East after Hamas pledged to release Israeli hostages. After he lands in Tel Aviv, Trump is scheduled to meet with the families of hostages in Jerusalem, where he's expected to be greeted by signs of appreciation and support for the peace deal and the United States. Trump will address the Knesset tomorrow before he heads to Egypt for a Middle East peace summit. U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron are expected to attend the summit and could also be joined by representatives from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Jordan.ShareThe hostage release in Gaza is expected to begin as early as 8 a.m. local time , according to Israeli media., the Israeli military expects hostages to return to Israeli custody starting around 9 a.m. from three locations in Gaza: Gaza City, central Gaza and Khan Younis in southern Gaza.People gathered early Monday in Hostage Square in Tel Aviv. Some slept as they waited for a livestream of the hostage releases to start.Israel has destroyed “approximately 810 kilometers of roads” — or about 500 miles — in Gaza, the enclave’s municipality said. Crews are working to clear roads and reopen Al-Nasr Street in western Gaza City “despite the severe lack of resources and the destruction of about 85% of the Municipality’s service vehicles,” it said. The municipality called on the international community to “intervene urgently and assist in providing heavy machinery and essential equipment needed to remove debris.”Their father, Itzik Horn, welcomed Yair back from captivity in February during the last ceasefire in Gaza. Now, he is anxiously awaiting Eitan’s release, expected to happen in the coming hours. “I feel like it’s really going to happen because we have been burned — let’s call it that — for so many times,” Itzik Horn said. This time, he told NBC News, “there is someone who is serious behind all of this process — there is President Trump.”But, Horn said, the reunion won’t feel real until he embraces his son. “I will tell Eitan the same thing I told Yair — the first thing I will tell him is that he went too far with the diet,” he said. Imagining his reunion with Eitan, Horn said: “I will hug him tight, tight. I guess I will cry. I will remind him how much I love him.”Critical aid, including food, medicine and shelter, was brought into Gaza today in a"humanitarian scale-up," the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said. “For the first time since March, cooking gas entered the Strip. More tents for displaced families, frozen meat, fresh fruit, flour and medicines also crossed into Gaza throughout the day,” the office said. The U.N. and its partners have also distributed hundreds of thousands of hot meals and bread bundles in the south and the north, it said. Medical and emergency supplies are also pre-positioned now that access restrictions have been loosened. Israel has also approved the U.N.’s bringing in 190,000 metric tons of aid, including food, shelter items, medicine and other supplies, the office said. “This is just the beginning. As part of our plan for the first 60 days of the ceasefire, the UN and our partners will expand the scale and scope of our operations to deliver life-saving aid and services to virtually everyone across Gaza,” it said.Trump insisted to reporters that the war in Gaza is over, despite Netanyahu’s suggesting the opposite in remarks earlier today. “The war is over. The war is over. The war is over, OK? You understand that?” Trump said when he was asked about Netanyahu’s comments on Air Force One. “There are still very big security challenges ahead of us. Some of our enemies are trying to recover in order to attack us again,” he said.Hamas leader Ghazi Hamad says Israeli is “manipulating the lists of prisoners” just hours before the hostage and prisoner exchange is due to take place. Hamas has “completed the necessary arrangements” to hand over the hostages, but Israel “is stalling,” Hamad told Al Jazeera earlier today, before he called for “strict oversight” of Israel and “international pressure.” “The coming hours will reveal the extent of the occupation’s commitment to the agreement,” he said about Israel. “And then we will determine our responses.”Trump’s personal touch — both as a heavy hand and a gentle guide — played a pivotal role at key moments in the development of a Middle East peace deal that promises to bring an end to Israel’s two-year war in Gaza, current and former officials in the United States and other nations told NBC News.Trump called it “a great deal” in a brief interview with NBC News on Thursday morning. “Everybody is happy,” he said. The deal accelerated over several crucial moments — Israel’s strike on Qatar, discussions on the sidelines of the recent United Nations General Assembly in New York City and Jared Kushner’s conversations with his father-in-law, these sources said.
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