Hamas has said that it is ready to hand over the 20 living hostages today, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday. “Israel is prepared and ready for the immediate reception of all our hostages,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated. Israel believes that Hamas will release the living hostages before midnight on Sunday, so that the hostages will be in Israeli care by the time US President Donald Trump arrives on Monday morning. Reports have indicated that the hostages are set to be released from three separate locations.
This contradicts Hamas's comments from earlier on Sunday that they would reportedly release all remaining hostages, living and deceased, by dawn on Monday, October 13, an Israeli official told The Jerusalem Post. Hamas has reportedly begun to gather the living hostages in preparation for their handover to representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which is expected to begin at around 6 a.m.
However, Hamas has yet to announce the location of the handover, and Israeli authorities currently have no indication of where the transfer will take place or whether there will be more than one handover site.
“We know from previous releases that in the days leading up to the handover, Hamas would gather the hostages in one place in preparation for their release. We assume that’s what they did over the past 24 hours,” an Israeli security official told Maariv. (Read More)
