Hostage release set to start Friday
The first group of 13 hostages held by Hamas is supposed to start being released at about 4 PM local time (9 AM US East Coast time) on Friday, Qatar’s Foreign Ministry announced.
After tense, last minute logistical consultations including the exchange of lists of names of those due to be released, Qatar’s foreign ministry announced today that a pause in Israel/Hamas warfare to enable the safe release of hostages held in Gaza is set to go into effect at 7 AM local time Friday (midnight US East Coast time tonight). The first group of 13 hostages held by Hamas is supposed to start being released at about 4 PM local time (9 AM US East Coast time) on Friday.
The process will continue over the course of four days, with about a dozen hostages to be released each day, all women and children. In return, Israel is due to release 150 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. The pause will be extended for 24 hours for every additional 10 hostages returned from Gaza, Israeli officials said this week.
“The beginning of the pause will be 7am Friday the 24th of November, and it will …last as agreed for four days,” Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Dr. Majed bin Mohammed Al Ansari said at a press conference in Doha today. “The first patch of civilians to be released will be around 4 PM of the same day. They will be 13 in number … Obviously everyday will include a number of civilians as agreed, to total 50 within the four days.”
The White House welcomed the Qatari announcement, while President Biden urged caution until the deal is done.
“We welcome the announcement from Qatar and expect to see a number of hostages coming out of Gaza tomorrow,” National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said.
“I’m not prepared to give an update until it’s done,” Biden told journalists covering his family Thanksgiving trip to Nantucket, Massachusetts, this afternoon.
“The criteria on which to prioritize the hostages [to be released] was purely humanitarian,” the Qatari spokesman said. “Our focus was on getting the women and children out of harm's way as soon as possible, which is basically what we are doing…with this agreement.”
Hopefully “the momentum carried by this deal would help us get everybody out in in time and at the same time, of course lessen the hardship,” Al Ansari said.
Al Ansari said “that the Red Cross and Palestine Red Crescent Society would be essential parts of the hostage release process,” a Qatari MFA summary of his press conference said. “He stressed that once the humanitarian pause entered into force, the aid would start flowing through the Rafah crossing in coordination with the Egyptian side.”
One of the hostages due to be released over the next four days is a 3 year old American toddler, Abigail mor Idan, a senior U.S. administration official said this week. Abigail, who turns four on Friday, saw her parents murdered on October 7 at their home on kibbutz Kfar Aza before she was kidnapped by Hamas.
“Her older brother and sister survived by hiding in [a] closet,” Aviva Klompas, who previously served as a speech writer at the Israeli mission to the UN, wrote on Twitter tonight. Abigail’s nine year old brother, Michael, “who saw his parents murdered, does not communicate.”
Abigail is one of three American hostages expected to be released over the next four days, the American official said.
The Israeli mother of two girls kidnapped by Hamas wrote on Twitter today that she had been informed that her daughters, Dafna, 15, and Ela, 8, were not among the first group of 13 hostages due to be released on Friday.
“I’ve been informed that Dafna and Ela are not on the list of the 13 hostages to be released tomorrow,” Maayan Zin wrote on Twitter. “This is incredibly difficult for me; I long for their return.”
“I’m relieved for the other families, and hopeful for the release of all the hostages.”
“The longest wait in my whole life,” Zin wrote yesterday, when Israeli officials said the hostage release would not begin before Friday, when it had previously been expected to start Thursday.
Zin, despairing that a hostage deal would materialize in time for her daughters to survive their captivity, wrote last week that she wanted to be allowed to go to Gaza to be with her children. She said that she believes that her children saw their father, Noam, killed in the Hamas massacre of 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7.
“I cannot wait for more news of hostage deals to come and go,” Zin wrote in the Washington Post on Nov. 17. “You have failed to free my girls, so take me to Gaza.”
“I will bring messages from the parents and loved ones of the other 31 children believed to be in captivity,” she continued.
“Some of those children no longer have their parents waiting for them back at home,” she wrote. “Take me to Gaza, so that I can be their mother, too.”
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