Israel's security cabinet on Friday recommended approval of a cease-fire and hostage-taking deal with Hamas, leaving one step to go. The agreement still needs to be approved by the full Israeli cabinet, after which it is expected to go into effect on Sunday.
Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip continued overnight Friday, and the Hamas-run Civil Defense Agency said 113 Palestinians had been killed since a ceasefire and hostage deal announced Wednesday night.
Huda Matrabi, a Palestinian from northern Gaza, told CBS News affiliate BBC News that the prospect of a deal gave her hope, but “with that hope comes a real fear” that the deal could collapse.
“Fear is not only about immediate danger, but also about the emotional impact: constant uncertainty and the ever-present feeling that our lives are not ours,” she said.
Families of the hostages gathered in Tel Aviv on Friday to call for a deal.
“This deal has come too late for my son Guy, whose life cannot be saved. But he can be brought home to be buried here,” Michelle Iluz, whose 26-year-old son was abducted from the Nova Music Festival in October. 7, 2023 and is believed to have died in Gaza, the gathered crowd said. “Our work is not finished. We will not rest until every hostage is back home, dead and alive. All of them must return to us, to their families.”
Israel's security cabinet was meeting on Friday to discuss the deal with an Israeli team that had been sent to Qatar for talks and was due to vote on it later in the day.
A broader group of Israeli ministers was originally scheduled to hold a separate vote on the deal on Saturday, but an Israeli official told CBS News that it was pushed back to Friday afternoon.
On Friday, preparations were underway for the reception of the hostages who will be released in various Israeli hospitals.
At the Ichilov Medical Center in Tel Aviv, they made a comfortable separate ward, prepared a special food menu. The hospital was putting up barriers to privacy. It was planned that the hostages would arrive by helicopter.
At Sheba Hospital, plans were being made for specialist staff to support hostages arriving there, and new clothes and toiletries were being delivered for them.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said on Friday that, subject to the approval of the security cabinet and the government, implementation of a plan to release hostages in Gaza and exchange Palestinian prisoners in Israel could begin on Sunday.
The first phase of this plan will last 42 days and involves a cessation of hostilities and the exchange of 33 hostages in Gaza for 1,000 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons. It would also lead to a reduction in Israeli troops in Gaza and a surge in humanitarian aid.