Israel prepares to pause fighting for hostage and prisoner exchange with Hamas

Nick Schifrin:

After 48 days of war, 48 days of hoping the kidnapped will be released, these are the final hours before the guns are scheduled to go silent in Gaza. At midnight Eastern time tonight, Israel has committed to pause its military campaign. And, tomorrow, at 9:00 a.m. Eastern, Hamas is committed to release 13 hostages it kidnapped during the October 7 terrorist attack.

Until then, the war continues.

In the hours before the gun cease, the tanks and the military bulldozers roll on. Israeli soldiers continue their ground invasion today in Northern Gaza's residential neighborhoods that Hamas uses to fight and store its weapons.

Israel's top soldier, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, said military pressure had helped force Hamas to release hostages.

LT. Gen Herzi Halevi, Chief of Staff, Israeli Defense Forces (through interpreter): We are not ending the war. We will continue until we are victorious.

Nick Schifrin:

Hamas uses residential neighborhoods to fight block to block. It released this video showing attacks on Israeli troops. Israel's air campaign continued as well, with 300 airstrikes today.

The IDF released black-and-white videos of its targeting senior Hamas commanders. On the ground, Palestinians picked through the rubble of what they say was a residential building. This is Rafah in the south, where many Palestinians fled.

Boy (through interpreter):

What is there to say? They destroyed the building on top of us. What is there to say?

Nick Schifrin:

They desperately searched for the living, but mostly pulled out the dead, overwhelmed by despair.

Israel's offensive is set to stop at 7:00 a.m. local tomorrow, when it will also allow more humanitarian aid trucks to reach Gaza. At 4:00 p.m. local, Hamas vows to release 13 women and children. Releases and the military pause will continue for four days, until 50 children and women are released.

And for each additional 10 children and women that Hamas releases, Israel would hold fire for an additional day. It was mediated by Qatar, which hopes the four-day plan becomes a permanent cease-fire.

Majed Al-Ansari, Qatari Foreign Ministry Spokesman:

We are hoping that that momentum will carry and that we would find this would open the door for further and more deep negotiations towards an end to this violence.

Nick Schifrin:

The violence began in kibbutzim such as Be'eri, visited today by British Foreign Secretary and former Prime Minister David Cameron.

The neighborhood is still burned out and abandoned, after residents were massacred and kidnapped 48 days ago. With the first hostage released just hours away, the Gonen family anxiously hopes to be reunited with 23-year-old Romi. Her parents, Eitan and Meirav, spend time in her empty bedroom. Right now, all they have are pictures.

Eitan Gonen, Father of Suspected Hamas Hostage: We worry a lot about Romi. We miss Romi a lot. I miss Romi a lot. Romi has a free spirit. She needs to be free all the time. Every kid, every child should be free.

Nick Schifrin:

In Tel Aviv today, demonstrators prayed that tomorrow's release would lead to all hostages freedom.

Nili Bresler is an English teacher of one of the hostages.

Nili Bresler, Teacher of Suspected Hamas Hostage: I just want to see the children come back. We want all of them to come back. But the first group of children will start breathing again, I think.

Nick Schifrin:

And so it is in Gaza, where the Al Salawat family is also holding their breath for a pause they hope becomes a cease-fire. They fled from their home, then to a U.N.-school-turned-shelter, and now to this tent.

Omar Al Salawat, Internally Displaced Palestinian (through interpreter):

want a complete cease-fire. We don't want a four-day truce. Our kids are tired. We want to leave with our children safe and sound. Take us back home and implement a full cease-fire.

Nick Schifrin:

As part of the deal, Israel will also release 150 Palestinians it currently holds in detention.

For more on the pause and what it means for the region, I turn to Jordan's for more on former Foreign Minister Marwan Muasher.

Marwan Muasher, thank you very much. Welcome back to the "NewsHour."

How important is this moment, not only for the war, but for the region?

Marwan Muasher, Former Jordanian Foreign Minister:

It is an important moment for several reasons.

Gaza is in desperate need for troops to be able to bring in food, medicine, fuel to the strip. But it's more important also, in that people hope that this is, yes, a four-day truce, but one that hopefully might turn into a permanent one.

And there are many efforts by several people in the region, including King Abdullah of Jordan and President Sisi of Egypt, who met yesterday, precisely to talk about diplomatic efforts aimed at converting this truce into a permanent one.

Nick Schifrin:

We heard that from the Qataris as well, but Israel vows to continue its operation until it fulfills its goals, the complete destruction of Hamas both militarily and politically.

U.S. officials support the idea of Israel's goals as well, but U.S. officials characterize the deal as incentivizing Hamas to release more hostages. Could subsequent hostage deals be possible, or are they going to be, in fact, more difficult than this one?

Marwan Muasher:

I think it's entirely possible, and Hamas has already said that, that there will be more deals to release hostages.

But I think, with every phase, with every deal, things are going to get more difficult. Remember, Hamas does not have an interest in releasing all hostages. This is a negotiating card. If they do that, then they are prone to more bombing by Israel.

Nick Schifrin:

The hostage situation is also difficult by the fact that Hamas has admitted to Qatari negotiators that it does not have control over at least all 90 or so women and children that are being held inside Gaza.

How complicated is the effort overall to release, at the very least, these 90 women and children?

Marwan Muasher:

Well, I hope that all women and children will be released, and, frankly, on both sides.

One did not also know that Israel is holding a lot of people under 19 years of age, mostly people who have been throwing rocks, nothing serious. But I think that I hope for a deal in which all hostages will be released on both sides.

Nick Schifrin:

Israel has two different categories of detainees it has, both administrative detainees and those it has arrested. And there are hundreds who are on the list to be possibly released tonight.

In terms of the region, last weekend, Jordan's King Abdullah warned the conflict could expand if the operation in Gaza continues. How high is that concern for regional expansion?

Marwan Muasher:

Look, there are two areas of concern, Nick.

One is that the conflict might extend into Lebanon. And we are already seeing escalations on the Lebanese border, although I still remain hopeful that there are enough indications to suggest that the conflict will not extend to Lebanon. The United States does not want it to extend, does not want it extended into Lebanon.

And I think it is exerting real pressure on Israel not to escalate. Iran and Hezbollah, on the other side, also have no interest in expanding the conflict there. I'm more worried about expanding the conflict to the West Bank, frankly. We are already seeing groups of settlers supported by the Israeli forces that are going into Palestinian villages and kicking people out.

I'm very worried. Jordan is worried, and Egypt is worried also, that we are seeing what might be an Israeli attempt to have a mass transfer of Palestinians from Gaza to Egypt and from the West Bank to Jordan. I think that is the worry. And U.S. administration have already privately admitted that Jordan and Egypt are justified in these concerns and have publicly warned Israel not to engage in any such operations.

Nick Schifrin:

What you just suggested is not official Israeli policy.

The intelligence minister in Israel, who is not a member of the Cabinet, did recently suggest that, instead of bringing the Palestinian Authority to Gaza, Israel should advocate for — quote — "the voluntary resettlement of Palestinians in Gaza outside the strip."

Again, not official policy, but is that where Jordanian and Egyptian concerns come from?

Marwan Muasher:

Look, logically, if Israel does not want to end the occupation and establish a Palestinian state on Palestinian territory, and if it also does not want a Palestinian majority, something it already has in areas under its control, then, logically, Israel is going to attempt a mass transfer of Palestinians out of Palestinian territory.

And, yes, it is that very concerned by Jordan and Egypt that Israel might attempt to empty the West Bank and Gaza of Palestinian population. Fortunately, until now, the Palestinians have learned their lesson from 1948, when they were expelled because of the war and were never allowed to go back, even though there were many U.N. resolutions.

And so we are not seeing so far a Palestinian movement. Despite the heavy bombing, we have not seen Palestinians crowd on the Egyptian border, for example. They do want to stay on their land. And Jordan and Egypt are helping them do that by indicating to the Israelis, to everyone, indeed, that the border will be closed, because opening the borders is going to help Israel empty the Palestinian territories of its population.

Nick Schifrin:

And, again, it is not Israeli policy to do exactly that, empty these territories, we should say, and the government specifically says that.

Let's look forward on the day after. Jordan and Egypt have both publicly refused U.S. requests to involve Arab troops into some kind of day-after plan for Gaza. Do you think they could be persuaded otherwise? And do you think, ultimately, the Palestinian Authority will be part of ruling Gaza the day after?

Marwan Muasher:

Nick, the emphasis by Arab states, by Jordan and Egypt, certainly, is not just on who is going to rule Gaza on the day after.

We need to understand that things after October 7 cannot be the same as before October 7, that the root goals should be the end of the occupation, not who rules Gaza, and then we go back to business as usual. Any political process that the United States initiates cannot be an open-ended process in which negotiations take place forever with no end in sight.

And the endgame is the end of the occupation. And then, once that endgame is defined, we can reverse-engineer a process and talk about the steps needed to get us there. But to talk about a political process once again that is open-ended means that we have not learned any lesson from what has happened.

Nick Schifrin:

Secretary of State Antony Blinken released a series of no's, things that it did not want Israel to do after the war, including reoccupy Gaza.

President Biden has repeatedly talked about the two-state solution in recent days and weeks. Does that go far enough?

Marwan Muasher:

Well, the United States and the international community has talked about two states forever, for about 30 years, since the Oslo process began.

If we are serious about the two-state solution, then we have to, again, work for steps to end the occupation. A Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza cannot emerge if the occupation is there. And so any political process has to have at its objective first an end to the occupation in order to establish a Palestinian state.

Nick Schifrin:

Marwan Muasher, former foreign minister of Jordan, thank you very much.

Marwan Muasher:

Thank you.