The first 13 of 50 hostages held by Hamas inside Gaza are due to be released later today, as part of a deal struck with Israel to bring a four-day ceasefire after six weeks of fighting.
Hamas agreed earlier this week to secure the release of 50 women and children among the 240 hostages that were taken on October 7.
As part of the agreement, Israel is hoping to incentivise Hamas by saying it will extend the four-day truce by an extra day for every 10 additional hostages released.
In exchange for the hostages Hamas is releasing, Israel is expected to free 150 Palestinian prisoners held in its jails, mostly teenage boys.
The ceasefire was set to take hold on Thursday local time, with hostages to be released in small groups over the subsequent days, but the agreement was delayed for 24 hours.
It will now start at 7am local time on Friday (4pm AEDT).
The deal marks a significant point in the conflict, which has so far killed 14,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, and 1,200 Israelis, according to authorities there.
However, it does not mean an end to the war.
How many are being held hostage inside Gaza?
As part of the terrorist attacks on Israeli communities on October 7, approximately 240 people were taken hostage by Hamas and other terrorist groups.
As well as Israeli citizens, many of those taken captive also held citizenship with foreign countries including the US, Australia, and several European nations.
Two days later, a Hamas official claimed the militants would not negotiate on releasing hostages “while under fire, during aggression and battle”.
“The hostage situation is a strategic file that has its own clear and known path, and its price will be paid by the occupation, there is no question about it,” Abu Obaida, a spokesman for Hamas’s Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, said in a recording.
Hamas claimed it was hiding the hostages in “safe places and tunnels” within Gaza. The terrorist group runs a complex warren of tunnels underneath the coastal enclave to store its weapons and conduct operations.
Associate fellow Rachel Briggs from Chatham House wrote there were five likely reasons Hamas took hostages.
One reason, she explained, was that the hostages gave Hamas “an insurance policy, to be used as bargaining chips as the conflict evolves”.
“Hamas knows that Israel has a track record of leaving no hostage behind,” she wrote.
In the weeks since, the terrorist group has only freed four hostages, two Israelis and two Americans, citing humanitarian reasons for their release. One Israeli soldier was rescued by the IDF.
How Israel and Hamas struck a deal
After weeks of negotiations mediated by the US and Qatar, Hamas and Israel agreed to a deal this week.
Israel’s government has a history of agreeing to lopsided exchanges to secure the release of its citizens, including a notable deal struck in 2011 to free IDF soldier Gilad Shalit.
He was released in exchange for 1,027 prisoners, mostly Palestinians, including senior Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, a powerful figure with a special interest in freeing Palestinian prisoners, according to an analyst.
But this time around, a deal was by no means guaranteed.
Hamas had initially held out on providing the identities of the hostages it would release, which was critical to the Israelis and Americans agreeing.
US President Joe Biden spoke to Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thini and was assured he would do all he could to get Hamas to cooperate — soon after, they provided a list.
Communications broke down multiple times after that, but eventually a deal was struck on Wednesday.
During negotiations, Hamas claimed it needed a ceasefire to figure out where all of the hostages were, with some believed to be under the control of another militant group, Islamic Jihad.
US media has reported that Islamic Jihad is refusing to release any hostages until all Palestinian prisoners are freed.
Who are the Palestinians who will be released as part of the deal?
Shortly after the hostage deal was announced, Israel’s Justice Ministry released a list of 280 Palestinian prisoners who could be released as part of the deal.
The majority of those listed are teenagers, with 117 under the age of 18, including some as young as 14.
They were mostly men and boys, with 31 female prisoners including one 15-year-old girl.
Most have been imprisoned for offences such as stone throwing and rioting in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, while 37 have been arrested on or convicted with charges of terrorism and 16 of attempted murder.
Among the prisoners listed, 45 were noted to have an organisational affiliation with Hamas and 59 with Fatah, another militant organisation.
Most are only recently imprisoned, having been arrested this year. The prisoner who has been held the longest appears to be Mison Musa Mahmoud Musa, a 27-year-old woman arrested in 2015, charged with attempted murder, and carrying and manufacturing knives and daggers.
The Israeli public was given 24 hours to lodge any objections to the names put forward, and the government will have final say over the prisoners who are released.
The released prisoners could be taken by buses to the presidential headquarters of the Palestinian Authority first as in past releases, even though Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had no role in these truce negotiations, a Palestinian official said.
While the total list was significantly higher than the 150 Hamas said would be released as part of the deal, they represent just a portion of the Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons.
At the end of September, B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, reported more than 5,000 Palestinians were in detention inside Israel.
By November, HaMoked, an Israel-based organisation that provides free legal aid to Palestinians living under occupation, reported that number was as high as 6,809.
That included more than 2,000 “administrative detainees” being held without trial, and 105 “unlawful combatants” — a category of prisoner not recognised under international law.
Addameer, a Palestinian prisoners’ rights group, released a statement on Monday this week — World Children’s Day — saying that more than 200 children had been arrested in Israel since October 7, with some of them subsequently released.
There are also concerns for Palestinians in the West Bank facing an increase in settler violence and a crackdown by Israeli police. and soldiers.
Earlier this month, Israel deported thousands of Palestinian workers from the Gaza Strip who had been trapped inside Israel in legal limbo after their work permits were cancelled when the war erupted.
Some workers described violent mistreatment in the detention facilities where they were held. The ABC has not been able to verify these claims, and Israeli military did not respond to AP’s requests for comment at the time.
The Israel Prison Service does not regularly publish comprehensive figures on Palestinians in detention, but it does provide data to both B’Tselem and HaMoked.
Hamas is expected to present the release of Palestinian prisoners as a major achievement, however the organisation has vowed in the past that it will not rest until all Palestinian prisoners are freed.
Could more hostages be freed, and what would happen next?
Among the reasons Israel agreed to strike a deal with Hamas may be the growing calls from families with missing loved ones.
Thousands of Israelis have rallied their government over the past few weeks to do whatever it takes to bring the hostages home, with many expressing frustration and demanding action.
“In the first few weeks of this, the hostages were like an afterthought, they were not the priority,” Mairav Zonszein, an analyst with the International Crisis Group, told VOX.
“That’s a huge shift that happened in the last few weeks, where the families after the initial shock started to organise themselves and they basically put it on the agenda.”
In one of the largest Israeli protests on behalf of hostages, families trekked for five days from Tel Aviv to Benjamin Netanyahu’s office in Jerusalem, where crowds urged the prime minister to “bring them home”.
(Reuters: Ronen Zvulun)
After finalising Israel’s terms with his war cabinet this week, Mr Netanyahu urged his government to vote yes to the deal, telling them it was a “difficult decision, but the right decision”.
But he faced significant difficulty in getting it over the line with his far-right coalition partners, with three ministers from national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Jewish Power party opposing the deal, arguing it should include the release of Israeli soldiers also taken by Hamas.
It leaves the prime minister in a difficult position, under pressure from a public desperate to see all hostages returned home safe, while hardline cabinet members threaten a political rebellion.
Mr Netanyahu has already warned the temporary ceasefire will not end the war.
“I would like to make it clear — we are at war, and we will continue the war until we achieve all our goals: eliminate Hamas, return all the hostages and missing, and guarantee that there will be no threat to Israel in Gaza,” he said before the deal was announced.
It remains to be seen how Hamas would negotiate any further hostage releases.
In late October, spokesman Abu Ubaida said the group would only release all hostages if all Palestinian prisoners are also freed.
Previous negotiations involving the exchange of prisoners and hostages have dragged out for months, and in some cases, longer.
Gilad Shalit was a teenager when he was kidnapped by Hamas militants while on patrol in 2006. He spent five years as their captive before finally being reunited with his family in 2011.
It is a prospect that is unbearable for people separated from their loved ones on both sides.
“Anyone can say whatever they want and publish whatever it is they want, but until [our loved ones] cross the border inside Israel and we see them and we will know this is them or not them, I’m not losing hope,” Romi Gonen, whose sister was kidnapped by Hamas, told the ABC this week.
“Anything can happen and we learned it in the hardest way.”
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