Hamas will begin releasing Israeli hostages held in Gaza on Monday morning, a top official from the Palestinian militant group told AFP, before US President Donald Trump chairs an international summit in Egypt on his peace plan for the region.
As part of the deal’s first phase, Hamas, whose deadly attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023 sparked the conflict, will free the captives, 20 of whom Israel believes are still alive, in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.
“According to the signed agreement, the prisoner exchange is set to begin on Monday morning as agreed,” Hamas official Osama Hamdan told AFP in an interview Saturday.
Trump and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will then chair a summit of more than 20 countries in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on Monday afternoon, the Egyptian presidency announced.
The meeting will aim “to end the war in the Gaza Strip, enhance efforts to achieve peace and stability in the Middle East, and usher in a new era of regional security and stability”, it said.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said he will attend, as has Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer, his counterparts from Italy and Spain, Giorgia Miloni and Pedro Sanchez, and French President Emmanuel Macron.
There was no immediate word on whether Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be there while Hamas said it would not take part as it had “acted principally through… Qatari and Egyptian mediators” during talks, Hamas political bureau member Hossam Badran said.
Despite the apparent breakthrough, mediators still have the tricky task of securing a longer-term political solution that will see Hamas hand in weapons and step aside from governing Gaza.
Badran said the second phase of Trump’s plan “contains many complexities and difficulties” while one Hamas official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said disarming was “out of the question”.
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