Three Israeli women are first hostages to be freed as ceasefire begins

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After Hamas delivered to Jerusalem the names of the three female Israeli hostages set to be released on Sunday, the ceasefire with the terrorist organization in the Gaza Strip took effect at 11:15 a.m.

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“Israel has received the list of the hostages who are due to be released today according to the framework. The security establishment is now checking the details,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.

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“Coordinator for the Hostages and the Missing Brig.-Gen. (res.) Gal Hirsch has initially notified the hostages’ families via IDF representatives,” the PMO stated.

A Hamas statement named the captives set to be released on Sunday as Romi Gonen, Doron Steinbrecher and Emily Damari. Their families allowed their names to be published early on Sunday afternoon.

Earlier, the Prime Minister’s Office had asked “media and the public not to circulate the details of the list, act with due caution and safeguard the privacy of the families.” Then the families gave permission to publish their daughters’ names.

Gonen, 24, was abducted from the Supernova music festival near Kibbutz Re’im after being shot by Hamas terrorists on the morning of Oct. 7, 2023, while Steinbrecher, 31, and Damari, 28, were taken from their homes in the border community of Kfar Aza. Steinbrecher is a dual Israeli-Romanian citizen, while Damari also holds British citizenship.

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Under the agreement with Hamas, the terrorist group should have provided the names of the hostages at least 24 hours ahead of the release of the three captives expected to be freed on Sunday at 4 p.m.

Netanyahu held a security assessment overnight Saturday “regarding the delay in receiving the list of hostages expected to be released,” according to a statement shared by his office.

The prime minister said he “instructed the Israel Defense Forces that the ceasefire, which is scheduled to take effect at 8:30 a.m., will not begin until Israel has the list of hostages to be released, which Hamas has pledged to provide.”

The IDF and Israeli Air Force fighter jets attacked Hamas terrorist targets throughout the Gaza Strip on Sunday morning “as usual,” the army said.

Hamas attributed the delay in forwarding the names to “technical reasons,” reiterating “its commitment to the terms of the ceasefire agreement.”

Yarden Gonen, Romi’s sister, told JNS in January 2024 that “every second counts. At any moment, Hamas could decide to abuse them, physically, mentally or sexually. They can’t even resist as it could cost them their lives.”

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In November 2023, when 105 captives were freed as part of a weeklong ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, some of them confirmed that Romi remained alive, albeit in serious condition due to her gunshot wound.

“The week of the release was very hard. Every day, we expected to receive a phone call from the authorities telling us that Romi was on the list [of hostages to be exchanged for terrorists held by Israel],” Yarden explained.

“On Dec. 1, (2023,) we woke up to find out that there wasn’t even a list because Hamas had breached the ceasefire and the war resumed,” she added.

Israel’s Health Ministry has formulated a new protocol for receiving and treating the captives due to be released, based on lessons learned from the November 2023 exchange of hostages for Palestinian terrorists.

The protocol has detailed guidelines for medical examinations, mental health care, privacy protection and long-term support for returnees and their families, emphasizing personalized care and respect for dignity.

Israel estimates that 25 of the 33 people on the list of hostages to be returned in the first stage of the renewed ceasefire deal are still alive. Ninety-four hostages abducted during the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre are still being held in Gaza, at least one-third of them dead.

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The 33 captives are considered “humanitarian” cases — women, children, men over 50, wounded and ill, including two mentally ill Israelis who entered the Strip on their own over a decade ago (Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed).

According to the Justice Ministry, Israel will release 1,904 Palestinian terrorists in the first stage: 737 prisoners and administrative detainees—among them killers with blood on their hands—and 1,167 residents of the Gaza Strip not involved in the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre.

Three hostages are expected to be returned on Sunday and four more on the seventh day after the ceasefire goes into effect. Three hostages will be returned every week for the remaining four weeks, with 14 returned on the final, sixth week of the accord’s first stage.

The second phase of the agreement would see the release of the remaining hostages in exchange for more Palestinian terrorists held in Israeli jails, and an Israeli army withdrawal from almost all of the Gaza Strip.

The 15-month-long war was triggered by Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre in the northwestern Negev in which terrorists killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted another 251 to the Gaza Strip, in the worst single-day attack against the Jewish people since the Holocaust.

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