Israeli hostages’ will start to be released on Monday morning, according to senior Hamas officials.
It comes as the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) completed their partial withdrawal of Gaza on Friday.
It set the 72-hour timer ticking for the return of all the 48 Israeli hostages including 20 believed to still be alive as agreed under Donald Trump’s peace plan.
Osama Hamdan told AFP: ‘According to the signed agreement, the prisoner exchange is set to begin on Monday morning as agreed, and there are no new developments on this matter.’
Under Trump’s deal, Hamas plans to release all remaining hostages in exchange for roughly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military will begin a withdrawal from the majority of Gaza.
At the beginning of the week Hamas said it was still searching for some of the slain hostages held in the Strip.
A taskforce was then established to locate the deceased missing hostages, an official told the Daily Mail, including representatives from Israel, the US, Egypt and Qatar.
On Wednesday night, Trump said the world ‘coming together’ had helped forge his landmark deal between Israel and Hamas.
‘This is more than Gaza,’ Trump told American TV presenter Sean Hannity during a telephone interview Wednesday night. ‘This is peace in the Middle East.’
Trump declared it was a ‘great day for the world’ as he imagined a prosperous future for the war torn area.
‘The whole world has come together on this one, Israel, every country has come together. This has been a fantastic day,’ he said. ‘This is a great day for the world. This is a wonderful day, a wonderful day for everybody.’
The US President is expected to give a historic speech at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem on Monday.
He will meet those freed before travelling to Egypt for a summit on Gaza with world leaders.
The latest truce marks a key step toward ending a ruinous two-year-conflict that was triggered by Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage.
