November 21, 2023 Israel-Hamas war

The hostages who are expected to be released if a deal is reached between Israel and Hamas will be mostly children, a source told CNN.

Earlier today, sources told CNN a deal to release hostages taken from Israel by Hamas in exchange for a pause in fighting in Gaza could be announced as soon as today, and aHamas leader said the group was "close to reaching a truce agreement."

The potential deal would free about 50 hostages and allow a four-to-five day pause in fighting. Three Palestinian prisoners in Israel would be freed for every civilian hostage who is released, according to multiple sources.

A source familiar with the negotiations said there is hope that with a potential hostage deal, they will be able to get significantly more aid into the Gaza Strip, working toward a goal of 400 trucks a day. 

Israel is are cognizant that more aid must be able to get into the strip, the source said. 

Before the October 7 Hamas terror attack on Israel, about 455 aid trucks entered Gaza every day, according to the United Nations.

However, there are still logistical issues that must be worked out, the US State Department said. This has been a challenge given the multiple actors responsible for different parts of allowing aid in Gaza. 

“We ran into a problem last week where we had aid that was going in through Rafah and then filling up warehouses. And because there was no fuel ... going through Rafah and fuel inside Gaza had been depleted, there was assistance sitting in Gaza that couldn’t be distributed to the people who needed it,” he explained.

“An agreement that the Secretary [of State Antony Blinken] pushed for last week with members of the Israeli war cabinet that they announced on Friday to allow fuel to go into Rafah for the first time will allow that humanitarian assistance to be delivered, now that it’s made it inside. But there is much more that needs to be done that we continue to push on.”

The White House offered a broad overview of what will happen to released hostages held by Hamas following six weeks held in “abhorrent” conditions. 

Pending a deal, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters Tuesday that the first step would be safe passage into Israel, followed by “immediate medical attention.”

Some of the hostages, he suggested, could have longer-term medical needs. 

While he declined to speculate on the size or nationalities of the potential pool of hostages that could be released, Kirby suggested that once medical attention is provided, there will be efforts to repatriate citizens to their home countries and connect them with their families. 

Should there be American citizens included in a potential hostage release, Kirby said, after medical care is prioritized, the US State Department will provide assistance.

“The State Department would make sure that they're looking after them from a consular perspective and providing whatever assistance they might need for follow-on movements,” he said.

Kirby also said US President Joe Biden has been “personally engaged in moving the process forward” as negotiations continue. 

Kirby said that the president has "been in touch with his national security team and the team on the ground that have been helping negotiate this, literally every day getting updates on what's going on — in fact, usually multiple times a day — and jumping in as he felt appropriate to jump in personally."

The hostages to be released from Gaza in the first phase of a potential deal between Israel and Hamas will be Israeli citizens and dual nationals, a diplomatic source familiar with the talks told CNN Tuesday.

Israeli government officials are meeting Tuesday night to approve the deal on the Israeli side, which will be the last step in finalizing the agreement, barring any unforeseen issues.

The families of Israeli women and children being held hostage in Gaza remain largely in the dark as a potential deal to free some of those hostages moves through an Israeli cabinet approval process.

For now, they are simply waiting in anticipation, wary not to get their hopes too high.

"We want to hold them in our arms and then I'll be able to say they're home," Zailer said.

Zohar Avigdori, whose 12-year-old niece and sister-in-law were taken hostage, said he and his brother are trying not to think about a potential release until they get confirmation.

"It's all assumptions, so the situation is unchanged: eyes on the prize without letting hope or despair steer us away," Avigdori said.

Both Avigdori and Zailer said they have received little to no information from the Israeli government as of Tuesday evening about a potential deal and are largely relying on news reports for their information.

"Even at its most communicative level, the government has not been communicative at all with us," Avigdori said. "So, I'm still in the dark."

The United Nations has called for an immediate ceasefire in Israel-Hamas war but said it would welcome a pause in fighting for the organization to be able to get more aid into Gaza, according to to UN relief chief Martin Griffiths.

Griffiths' comment comes after sources told CNN a deal to release hostages taken by Hamas in exchange for a pause in fighting in Gaza could be announced as soon as today.  

“It does seem this time that it’s much more likely than it has been in the past weeks. It does seem to be more confirmation from across the landscape that there’s going to be this release and an associated stoppage of fighting for a certain number of days,” the UN official said.  

Griffiths has described the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as “the worst ever” he has seen during his long career at the UN working in many war zones.   

“I don’t say that lightly. I mean, I started off in my 20s dealing with the Khmer Rouge, and you remember how bad that was, the killing fields and so forth,” he said.

At least 1.7 million people – nearly a quarter of Cambodia’s population — were killed by execution, disease, starvation and overwork under the Khmer Rouge’s brutal rule from 1975 to 1979.

He went on to describe the scenes in Gaza as "complete and utter carnage.”   

“Nobody goes to school in Gaza, nobody knows what their future is. Hospitals have become places of war, not of curing. No, I don’t think I’ve seen anything like this before," Griffiths said.

Two far-right Israeli parties that are members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government suggested Tuesday that they would not support the hostage deal being considered by the government.

The Religious Zionism Party, headed by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, said: “The suggested deal is bad and we must not agree to it. It’s bad for Israel’s security, for the hostages and for IDF soldiers,” adding, “The only way to return all the hostages is to continue applying military pressure on Hamas until its complete surrender.”

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Jewish Power party said it would “find it very difficult to support the deal,” and that “our demand is a deal that releases everyone, but on our terms.”

Both parties’ statements suggested they had not yet seen the full terms of the deal.

Neither Smotrich nor Ben Gvir is a member of the war cabinet, which is currently meeting to consider the deal. 

Both are members of the security cabinet, which is due to meet at 12 p.m. ET.

More on the hostage deal: The Israeli government aims for at least 50 hostages to be released as part of the deal being mooted Tuesday – 10 per day for five days – an Israeli government source told CNN. The government would be prepared to extend the deal if Hamas is prepared to release more hostages.

During the days that the fighting is paused, Israel would stop flying surveillance drones over Gaza for at least six hours each day, one person familiar with the talks said.

Under the forthcoming agreement, Hamas would also gather up any additional women and children hostages during the period that fighting has paused – something the group has insisted that it cannot do until a sustained ceasefire is in place. The temporary ceasefire would potentially be extended beyond that for more hostages to be released.

Hamas has also demanded hundreds of trucks of aid, much of it fuel, as part of the negotiations. Fuel is key to running its military operations and ventilating the group’s network of underground tunnels in Gaza.

The Israeli war cabinet is meeting to discuss a potential hostage deal with Hamas, a source in the prime minister’s office told CNN. 

The war cabinet has five members: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, former Defense Minister Benny Gantz and former IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot. 

Following the war cabinet meeting, Israel’s security cabinet – which is larger than the war cabinet – is due to meet at 12 p.m. ET to discuss the deal. 

After that meeting, Israel’s full cabinet – all the government ministers – is expected to meet at 1 p.m. ET to discuss the deal.

The deal does not have to go to the full 120-member Knesset for approval. 

Remember: Israel, Hamas and the US are on the cusp of reaching a deal that could be announced as soon as Tuesday for Hamas to release 50 women and children hostages that the militant group took during the October 7 terror attack on Israel, in exchange for a four-to-five day pause in fighting and three Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons for every hostage released, according to sources familiar with the negotiations.

US President Joe Biden confirmed on Tuesday that efforts to retrieve a group of civilian hostages held by Hamas in Gaza since October 7 are “now very close” following extensive negotiations over the past six weeks. 

CNN has previously reported the deal would call for the release of 50 women and children hostages in exchange for a four-to-five-day pause in fighting and three Palestinian prisoners for every civilian hostage released, according to multiple sources.

“We’ve been working on this intensively for weeks, as you all know,” Biden said, pointing to his own talks in recent days with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani and US officials on the ground in the region. 

Pressed by CNN’s MJ Lee for details on how many American hostages could be released, Biden declined to say.

“I’ll have plenty of time to talk about the hostages. Not now. I’m not going to tell you now,” he said.