What we know about the Israel-Hamas hostage deal — and why it's so fragile
Red Cross expected to play role in facilitating the exchange as a 4-day ceasefire begins Friday
After tense and complex negotiations, the first batch of hostages captured by Hamas are set to be released Friday. That release of 13 Israeli women and children comes as a four-day ceasefire begins. In total, 50 hostages are expected to be released over four days. In return, Israel is expected to release 150 Palestinian prisoners.
This is what we know about the exchange.
What are the logistics of the Israeli hostage exchange?
Some of the exact details of the exchange remain unclear. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is expected to work in Gaza to facilitate the release of the hostages at around 4 p.m. local time, hours after a ceasefire officially begins, according to Qatar's foreign ministry, which has been mediating the deal. The hostages will be transported to the Gaza-Egypt border and then into Egypt.
The ICRC had been involved in helping facilitate the release of four other hostages who were set free a couple weeks after the Oct. 7 attack on Israel launched by Hamas.
When the current hostages arrive in Egypt, their identities will be verified. They will then be given a medical check and sent to Israel, where they will go immediately to hospital, Gershon Baskin a former hostage negotiator who previously helped secure the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2011, told Germany-based DW News.
Other hostage negotiators echoed that assessment. "Logically, we would think they'd be transported to the Egyptian border and then probably flown into Israel from there," hostage negotiation expert Dan O'Shea told CBC News. "That's how it's worked in the past."
Those hostages considered seriously injured will be transported by helicopter, The New York Times reported, citing officials. Children under 12 will be met at the border by their families, officials told the Times. Older hostages will meet their families at hospitals, where they will also be debriefed by security services, the Times reported.
Israel's Ministry of Welfare and Social Affairs has published guidelines on how the returning hostage children should be handled, the Wall Street Journal reported
In the first few hours after their release, the children will be accompanied by soldiers and each hostage or family of hostages should have one accompanying soldier, who needs to introduce themselves with their name, say they are from the Israeli military and that they will be with them until they get home. "You are in a safe place, I am here to care for you, you are safe," the soldier should say, the WSJ reported, quoting from the guidelines.
How will Palestinian prisoners be released?
As for the release of Palestinian prisoners, Majed Al-Ansari, a spokesperson for the foreign ministry of Qatar, which has been part of the negotiations, did not give details on how many Palestinian women and children will be released from Israeli jails on Friday or when this would take place.
Prisoners on Israel's list of 300 for possible release include many male teenagers who were arrested in the past two years, The Washington Post reported. Their alleged crimes range from throwing stones to attempted murder, or "harming regional security."
It's unclear how many may not have stood trial. Some are said to belong to Hamas and other militant groups, while others have no affiliation.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Palestinian prisoners from the occupied West Bank will be taken by the Red Cross to a checkpoint near Ramallah; prisoners from Jerusalem will be transferred to Israeli police stations in that city and then released from there. The prisoners will be freed two hours after the released hostages are back in Israel, officials told the WSJ
By late Thursday evening, negotiators were still working on the fine details, such as the route the hostages would take into Israel, the WSJ reported.
Janice Stein, a political science professor at the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, told CBC's Andrew Chang there are concerns about how they will be transported and how long that process will take.
"There are a whole series of concerns that have to do with the capacity of some of these hostages to survive, frankly," Stein said.
Al-Ansari, the Qatari official, said an operations room in Doha will monitor the ceasefire and the release of hostages. It has direct and real-time lines of communication with Israel, the Hamas political office in Doha and the Red Cross, he added. Qatari officials have said the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, negotiated as part of the exchange, will last four days.
Why is this exchange more challenging than others?
This deal is unlike traditional state-to-state negotiations, where the parties would be sitting from across each other, said O'Shea, the hostage negotiator. Instead, both parties want to wipe the other out, he said.
"You're not having an Israeli sitting across the table from a Hamas leader to negotiate the finer details," he said. "That's why this has been so challenging and there's so many complicating layers, because this is all done through multiple third-party intermediaries and diplomats."
Baskin said there are many moving parts that need to be aligned, particularly when dealing with two parties that don't communicate directly.
"We're relying on third parties like Qatar and Egypt to deal with all these minutia, details that need to be agreed on so that the whole thing doesn't explode before it even takes place."
Could the whole deal break down?
The exchange is expected to occur over four days, but it's possible it could break down at any moment, Baskin added.
"This is very fragile and it could break down by a single shot of a soldier or a Hamas fighter," he said.
"It is literally day by day and hour by hour that people need to take this because things could change on a moment's notice because of the fractured relationship between Hamas and Israel," he said.
"It can also turn on a dime. So it's it's still very tenuous and everyone needs to be cautiously optimistic."
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With files from Reuters