It will be a “historic event” mixing “sadness” and “joy”, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: the return of the Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas on October 7, 2023 is expected this Monday, October 13, after more than two years of captivity. This release will be in exchange for Israel’s release of nearly 2,000 Palestinians, as part of Donald Trump’s peace plan for Gaza, accepted last week by both parties. The American president will be in Israel today, then in Egypt, to co-chair a “peace summit”, during which the countries mediating the ceasefire agreement in Gaza must sign a document guaranteeing its application. “The war is over. Okay? Do you understand that?” said the tenant of the White House before leaving the United States.
Information to remember
⇒ The release of Israeli hostages from Hamas expected this morning
⇒ The war in Gaza is “over,” says Donald Trump
⇒ A peace summit organized in Egypt
07h02
Release of hostages: Red Cross en route to agreed point in northern Gaza Strip
Vehicles from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) are on their way Monday morning to an agreed point in the northern Gaza Strip to collect hostages to be released by Hamas, according to the Israeli army.
“The Red Cross is on its way to a meeting point in the north of the Gaza Strip, where several hostages will be handed over to its custody,” the Israeli army wrote in a brief statement, specifying that it was ready “to receive other hostages to be handed over to the Red Cross at a later date.”
06h35
A peace summit organized in Egypt
After less than four hours on Israeli soil, Donald Trump will then travel to Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, to co-chair with his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sissi a “summit for peace” in Gaza, in the presence of leaders of more than 20 countries, including Emmanuel Macron, and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.
The governance of the Gaza Strip, ravaged by two years of war, will be one of the issues. The countries mediating the ceasefire agreement in Gaza must sign a document guaranteeing its application, indicated a diplomatic source according to which these countries will be “the United States, Egypt, Qatar and probably Turkey”.
No Israeli official will make the trip, nor will Hamas. Iran, a long-time supporter of the latter, has been invited but will not participate either.
06h30
The war in Gaza is ‘over,’ says Donald Trump on his way to the Middle East
Donald Trump declared Sunday, aboard Air Force One bound for Israel and Egypt, that the war in Gaza was “over.” “The war is over. Okay? Do you understand that?” the US president told reporters in response to a question about the conflict between Israel and Hamas. Just before boarding Andrews Air Force Base, near Washington, the American president declared that his visit to the two countries would be a “very special moment”, that “everyone is looking forward to”.
For his part, Benjamin Netanyahu estimated that Israel had won “huge victories, victories that stunned the whole world”. “I must tell you that the fight is not over,” he added in a televised address on Sunday.
Upon his arrival in Israel, around 8:20 a.m., Donald Trump must meet the families of the hostages captured by Hamas during its attack on October 7, 2023. He must then deliver a speech to the Knesset, the Israeli parliament in Jerusalem, thus becoming the fourth American president to do so.
06h20
Release of Israeli Hamas hostages expected this morning
The armed wing of Hamas published on Monday the list of names of the 20 living hostages to be released today, on the fourth day of the ceasefire with Israel. “As part of the agreement [de cessez-le-feu et] for the exchange of prisoners, the al-Qassam Brigades decided to release the following living Zionist prisoners,” said a statement from the armed group, publishing the list of names of twenty hostages who were previously presumed alive.
First stage of the plan presented by Donald Trump to silence the guns, the return to Israel of the 48 hostages, alive or dead, must be accompanied by the release by Israel of 250 detained for “security reasons” – including many convicted for deadly anti-Israeli attacks, and of 1,700 Palestinians arrested in Gaza since October 2023. Their arrival is planned “early Monday morning”, according to Shosh Bedrosian, spokesperson for Benjamin Netanyahu, and the government expects that the “20 living hostages will be released together [et remis tous] at the same time to the Red Cross”.
Israeli authorities, however, anticipate that not all the dead hostages will be returned on Monday. In which case, an “international body, agreed upon as part of this plan, will help locate the (dead) hostages if they are not found and released” on Monday, according to Shosh Bedrosian.
