Gaza truce and hostage release: 'This is unique, nothing on this scale has ever happened'
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00:00 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the Red Cross will be allowed to visit
00:04 the remaining hostages in Gaza.
00:06 His statements come after Wednesday's landmark agreement between Israel and Hamas for a four-day
00:12 ceasefire in Gaza in exchange for 50 Israeli hostages.
00:16 Hamas for its part says 150 Palestinian women and children imprisoned by Israel will also
00:22 be returned in the deal.
00:24 Egyptian mediators say the truce is set to start on Thursday at 10am local time.
00:30 It brings a hopeful pause to the relentless IDF bombing since October 7th when Hamas killed
00:36 more than 1,200 Israelis.
00:37 Let's hear from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking on Wednesday.
00:43 My request with the negotiators to improve the agreement and it has been done.
00:49 This combined military and diplomatic effort has enabled us to have the conditions requisite
00:57 to have the hostages be released.
01:01 And I think this will also lead to further release of other hostages.
01:05 The agreement, while there will not be any assassins released and the Red Cross will
01:12 be able to visit our hostages and give them medication, citizens of Israel, I want to
01:21 be very clear this evening, this war is going to continue.
01:26 It is ongoing.
01:28 We will continue this war up until we reach all our goals, release all hostages, annihilate
01:37 Hamas and in post-Hamas, in Gaza we will not have anyone in power that will be paying terrorists
01:46 and educate children in a spirit of terrorism and we will do this throughout the north and
01:54 the south.
01:56 We heard from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu there for more on these developments.
02:00 I'd like to now bring in Yossi Meckelberg, Associate Fellow at Chatham House's MENA
02:04 program in London.
02:06 Yossi, thanks so much for joining us.
02:08 We finally managed to reach talks of a ceasefire.
02:12 How exactly have we got to this point?
02:16 I think those are actually negotiations that have taken quite a while and it has certain
02:24 separate elements.
02:26 One is of course the release of the hostages, release of Palestinian prisoners, 150 of them,
02:33 and then of course a ceasefire.
02:36 This is more a pause than a ceasefire of four days.
02:40 And then Israel also suggested that for every 10 extra additional hostages released, there
02:51 will be another day of a pause.
02:54 And this will create at least for now a different reality to what we have seen in the last 47
03:02 days.
03:03 A very violent reality it has been, of course, in Gaza.
03:08 Can you tell me exactly what we can expect then in terms of the process on the ground
03:13 to retrieve those hostages and then to do an exchange as we kind of expect?
03:19 How would that look?
03:20 No, no, the technicality of this, the logistics is quite complicated because the needs only
03:27 tonight the list of the 50 Israelis released, we assume all women and children, has been
03:34 handed to the Israelis.
03:37 Then they need to find, you know, they're not all in this, we assume, not all in the
03:41 same place.
03:43 So they need to gather there and move them to a safe place through some corridor to ensure
03:50 that they reach the border.
03:53 All of these are details that negotiated.
03:57 I have been through mediators, whether it's Qatar, Egypt, the United States, and of course
04:01 with Hamas and Israel.
04:04 But it will be interesting to see how it's actually in practice, actually does happen.
04:12 What we know for now that by tomorrow at 10 o'clock, this, call it a humanitarian pause
04:19 or ceasefire, will come into effect and then we'll see if it's, what happens next.
04:28 Of course, it could be obviously very difficult to maintain any kind of ceasefire from both
04:33 sides.
04:34 Who is acting as an insurer that both Israel and Hamas stick to this agreement?
04:42 I think the best insurance of this agreement is both sides are interested in this.
04:47 Israel obviously is interested in the release of hostages.
04:50 Hamas is interested in the release of prisoners and also to give some time to regroup in these
04:57 four days after it has been under intense attack for 47 days.
05:05 Obviously the mediators, whether it's again Qatar, Egypt, the United States, other countries
05:10 in the region, are the guarantors in this kind of an agreement.
05:15 But I think what makes it a reality, what makes it likely to happen is because it's
05:22 the interest of both sides, which is what usually a good sign for any agreement.
05:28 I don't suppose you can speak to any previous encounters or historical examples of hostages
05:35 and any kind of exchange that took place regarding these two entities, Israel and Hamas.
05:43 What we can maybe expect?
05:46 This is unique.
05:47 Nothing on this scale has ever happened.
05:50 The last time something, exchange happened, it was one Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit,
05:56 for more than a thousand Palestinian prisoners.
06:01 Now we are talking about something completely different in comparison to what happened in
06:06 the past.
06:07 We are talking also, again we don't know exactly the names of the 50 Israelis, but probably
06:12 you're talking from 10 months old to maybe 80 something years old.
06:19 Some of them frayed.
06:20 We don't know at what condition, whether they're injured or they're in a health situation.
06:26 So it's very different.
06:28 And it all happens after 47 days of war and terrible devastation and destruction and death
06:38 in Gaza after what happened 7 October in Israel.
06:42 So I think it's one of these situations that are unique and we need to see how it pans
06:49 out.
06:50 Of course, there's so much psychological trauma to deal with for both those in Gaza and those
06:55 Israeli hostages who are going to finally come back home.
06:58 Thank you so much for joining us and for your insights, Yossi Mekelberg.
07:02 Yossi joining us from Chatham House where he is an associate fellow at the MENA program