. After the tension experienced in recent hours with Israel’s doubts regarding a possible breach of the agreement signed with Hamas, the Islamist group has released the identity of the three hostages who will be released this Sunday.
Although the truce was expected to begin at 8:30 a.m. local time, Benjamin Netanyahu’s office warned in the early hours of this Sunday that something was not being fulfilled.
The Israeli Government reproached Hamas for not yet sending it its list with the identity of the hostages who were going to be released and delayed the ceasefire for a few hours.
Israel demanded that Hamas hand over the names of the three Israeli hostages that the Palestinian Islamist movement had to hand over this afternoon according to the terms of the agreement. The Palestinian Islamist movement attributed the delay to “technical reasons” in a complex process by which it must first deliver these names to the Qatari mediation, which in turn communicates them to Israeli Intelligence, and from there to the families.
The three hostages that Hamas will release
Finally, the spokesman for the armed wing of Hamas, Abu Obeida, has publicly disclosed the names of the three hostages who will be released this afternoon: Romi Gonen, 24 years old; Emily Damari, 28, and Doron Steinbrecher, 31.
Romi Gonen, 24, was kidnapped during the festival attack of Nova music, one of the epicenters of the attack by Palestinian militias against Israel on October 7.
For its part, Emily Damari, 28, has dual British and Israeli nationalityand was also captured while in her apartment in the Kfar Aza kibbutz.
Finally, the third freed hostage is Doron Steinbrecher, 31-year-old veterinary nurse. Like Damari, she was kidnapped from her home in the Kfar Aza kibbutz during the October 7 attacks.
Release process
The next step will take place this afternoon, starting at approximately 3:00 p.m., when Hamas will hand over the three hostages to Israel in exchange for at least 90 Palestinian prisoners under the terms stipulated in an agreement that contemplates the release of 1,900 prisoners in exchange for 33 hostages over the next six weeks.
The 1,904 Palestinian prisoners to be released over the next 42 days They include 1,167 Palestinians detained since the outbreak of the Gaza war on October 7, 2023, plus another 737 prisoners who were previously in jail, including 22 with “serious blood crimes”, including, for example, former commander of the armed wing of the Palestinian party Al Fatah in Jenin, West Bank, Zakaria al Zubaidi, according to the list published by the Israeli Ministry of Justice.
In exchange, the Islamist movement Hamas undertakes to release in this first phase 33 of the 98 hostages held by the Palestinian militias, beginning with the handover to their families, this coming Sunday, of the three Israelis at the beginning of a trickle of releases every Saturday or Sunday and which will culminate in the sixth week, with the release of 14 hostages, explains the ‘Times of Israel’.
For every one of the women, children and elderly people alive, 30 Palestinian prisoners will be released; For the nine sick hostages, 110 prisoners will be released; For each Israeli female soldier, 50 prisoners will be released; for hostages Avera Mengistu and Hisham al Sayed, who have been held captive in Gaza for a decade, 30 prisoners each will be released, in addition to the 47 Palestinians freed in a previous agreement in 2011 and arrested again.
