Report: Hamas Submits Hostage List For Release, Including 4 Americans In ‘Gesture To Trump’

JERUSALEM (VINnews) — In a sign of the significant progress in negotiations for a prisoner exchange in Gaza, the Hamas terror group has reportedly submitted a list of hostages it proposes to free in the first stage of a ceasefire deal with Israel. Hamas also published a list of Palestinian security prisoners held by Israel that it wants released, according to a report by the London-based news site Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reports. The report said that Hamas even detailed the medical conditions of the sick and elderly captives.

Citing a source close to the talks, the newspaper says that Israel is evaluating the list and could send a delegation to Cairo later today.

The source told the newspaper that the negotiations are being held with teams from Egypt, Israel, and Hamas.

“Both sides are serious about reaching an unprecedented deal, with Egypt, Qatar, and the US participating in the negotiations as mediators,” the source said.

Reports have said that the sides are working on a partial deal under which hostages in the “humanitarian” category would be freed in return for an extended ceasefire and the release of Palestinian prisoners.

The humanitarian category includes elderly, children, women, ill and badly wounded hostages. The number of living hostages in these groups is today understood to be fewer than the 33 that was previously discussed in talks over past months.

The report also says that Hamas is proposing to release four hostages with US citizenship, some of whom do not not fall under the humanitarian category, in an apparent gesture to incoming US President Donald Trump, who has threatened to punish those responsible if the hostages aren’t released before his inauguration.

For more than a year, negotiations have stalled and the sides have failed to reach another agreement to return the hostages still held in Gaza, after 105 of them were released in a weeklong truce in late November 2023. Israel believes that 96 of the 251 hostages kidnapped on October 7 are still in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF. Over the past 14 months, IDF troops have rescued eight hostages and recovered the bodies of 38.

Israeli sources believe that, with the fall of Hezbollah and the Syrian regime as well as the weakening of Iran, Hamas has been left without support from foreign powers and is now more amenable than before to a prisoner exchange deal.