Hostage deal enters fifth phase: What’s planned for Saturday’s exchange?

With a total of 13 Israel hostages and 5 Thai hostages released until now as per the hostage deal with Hamas, this Saturday the fifth phase of the first part of the deal will take place in the morning, if all goes as planned.

Tomorrow morning (Friday), Hamas is supposed to hand over, via Qatari mediators, a list of three live hostages. Israel will have to decide if the list is acceptable, and if so to inform the families.

The release will take place, like last weeks', on Saturday morning. In exchange, Israel will release 180 terrorists: 7 serving life sentences will be sent to Egypt, 130 to Gaza, 40 to Judea and Samaria, 3 to East Jerusalem and one to an Arab village in the north.

In addition, IDF forces will have to retreat from the Netsarim Corridor, which will allow total freedom for Gazans to return to the north, even with vehicles.

Another 20 hostages are to be released in this first part of the deal during the next month, 12 are alive and 8 were murdered. The big question is related to Shira Bibas and her two children, Ariel, now 5 and Kfir, now 2. There are 7 hostages over the age of 50 who will be released over the next month, as well as 10 humanitarean cases.

At the end of the first part of the deal there will still be 56 hostages in the hands of the barbaric Hamas terrorists, 35 of whom have already been determined to be dead.