The Israeli government on Wednesday morning published the details of the hostage deal approved by the cabinet earlier in the morning.

The deal was approved after a meeting that lasted about eight hours. The only party that voted against the deal was the Otzma Yehudit party. The Israeli public has 24 hours to appeal the deal to the Supreme Court, and then – if the Court, as expected, rejects the petition, the deal will be implemented.

Fifty hostages, women and children, will be released during the first four days of the ceasefire. No mothers will be released without their children or vice versa.

Israel will release 150 Palestinian prisoners, mostly males under age 20, and 13 women – all of whom were not convicted of murder. However, 17 prisoners on the list were convicted of attempted murder and in many cases, caused grievous injuries to their Israeli victims. Many belong to terror groups such as Hamas or Islamic Jihad, and have been convicted of crimes such as causing severe bodily harm, arson, possession of illegal weapons, and endangering state security.

A list of prisoners to be released was published on Wednesday morning and Israelis have 24 hours to appeal to the Supreme Court against the deal or the release of specific prisoners.

Prior to each phase of the return of hostages, Israel will receive in advance, the evening prior, the list of hostages who will be released the next day. Hamas is expected to release the first list of ten hostages on Wednesday evening. The hostages will be brought into Israel on Thursday morning via the Red Cross. The Palestinian prisoners will be released later on Thursday.

Israel will release the prisoners only after the hostages arrive in Israel. Each released prisoner will return to his home, whether in East Jerusalem, Yehudah and Shomron, or Gaza.

After the initial stage of the deal is completed and 50 hostages have been returned to Israel, if Hamas releases additional hostages, it will receive three Palestinian prisoners in exchange for each hostage and one ceasefire day for every release of ten hostages.

Israel will be restricted for six hours of each day of the ceasefire [between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.] from gathering intelligence in Gaza via surveillance drones.

On each day of the ceasefire, four fuel trucks, four gas trucks, and 200 trucks of humanitarian aid will enter Gaza.

The current deal approved by the Cabinet is limited to ten days from the first release, partially to prevent Hamas from dragging out the return of the hostages. But at the same time, the government approved the release of 300 terrorists in the hope that Hamas will release up to 98 hostages. If another deal is reached after ten days, it will need to be brought to the government for approval.

According to the data that Israel has received, the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror groups are holding about 195 Israelis, of whom 40 are children and 58 are women. The current estimate is that the deal will eventually include 98 hostages. At this point, Hamas is only aware of the whereabouts of 75 of them, with at least 10 children being held by Islamic Jihad or other terror groups or individuals.

A number of hospitals are preparing to receive the hostages – in separate departments from other wings of the hospital. The children who will be released will be brought to the Schneider Medical Center in Petach Tikva, while the adults who will be released will be transferred to Sheba, Wolfson, Ichilov, Shamir (Asaf Harofeh) and Soroka hospitals. The hospitals were instructed to document any physical findings that could testify to war crimes.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)