Fate of 59 Israeli hostages, 2 million Palestinians hangs in balance as first phase of ceasefire nears end

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Thursday that he had instructed his country’s negotiators to travel to Cairo “for the continuation of the talks” aimed at keeping the tenuous ceasefire agreement with Hamas alive. The announcement came hours after four Israeli hostages’ remains were returned by Hamas as part of the final hostage-prisoner exchange of phase one of the deal. 

The fact that the Israeli leader was sending his team to Cairo would bring hope, but there was still deep uncertainty over the future of the ceasefire deal two days before its first six-week phase ends.

The bodies handed over by Hamas on Thursday were the last of the 33 hostages to be returned to Israel during phase one of the ceasefire. Israel released about 600 more Palestinian prisoners Thursday in exchange. The freed detainees, some of whom had been serving long sentences and others who were detained during the Gaza war and never formally charged, poured out of buses in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and in Gaza to emotional reunions with loved ones.

There were still 59 Israeli hostages being held in Gaza as of Thursday, only 24 of whom are believed to be alive, according to the Israeli government. Their fate hinges on the future of the ceasefire agreement that was negotiated by the U.S., Egypt and Qatar.

The plan was for the second phase of the deal to see all remaining hostages returned in exchange for a permanent ceasefire and Israel pulling its forces out of Gaza. But Netanyahu has been under intense pressure from hardline members of his cabinet to walk away from the truce and resume Israel’s war in Gaza against Hamas, which has long been designated a terrorist group by the U.S., Israel and the European Union.

Netanyahu has said for more than a year that the objective of the war in Gaza — which the Palestinian territory’s Hamas-run Health Ministry says has killed well over 48,000 people, most of them civilians — is to destroy or at least disarm Hamas. That’s a goal Israel’s devastating military assault has not yet achieved.

The Israeli prime minister is also under intense pressure, however, from the families of the hostages to keep the ceasefire alive so their loved ones can be brought back home. President Trump has made it clear that he will back Israel, whatever Netanyahu decides to do, but his special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff is expected back in the region soon to push for a second phase.

“We will get to stage two, or phase two, and I’m very focused on that, and I think it’s going to happen,” Witkoff said Sunday on CBS News’ “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”

Witkoff said securing the release of the last U.S. national believed to be among the surviving hostages, Edan Alexander, who was serving with the Israel Defense Forces when he was abducted during the October 7 terrorist attack, was “front and center for us.”

“I know his parents. We talk all the time. He’s critical. It’s one of President Trump’s most important objectives is to get all Americans home, and we’re going to be successful in getting Edan home, I believe,” Witkoff told Brennan.

Getting to the second phase of the ceasefire agreement, and the terms negotiated for it, is also critical for Gaza’s roughly 2 million Palestinian residents, the vast majority of whom were forced to flee from their homes by the 15-month war, many of them multiple times. Many have returned to find their cities and towns in ruins, and Mr. Trump’s suggestion that they all be forced out of the enclave — possibly without any right to return — so it can be turned into a new luxury real estate development, has fueled anxiety across the region.

Critics have condemned the idea as would-be ethnic cleansing, and America’s regional allies Egypt and Jordan, which Mr. Trump has suggested should take in the displaced Palestinians, have adamantly rejected the idea and, along with other Arab nations, are expected to present an alternative proposal to redevelop Gaza.

Witkoff told Brennan that while the level of devastation in Gaza and the risks posed by unexploded ordinance “suggest that nobody can really live there in a safe environment for probably at least 15 years… I’m not sure that anyone has a problem with people, with people returning. We’ve had these discussions around that. I just think the fundamental issue today is how we get phase two done, and then develop a reconstruction plan for Gaza.”

Mr. Trump’s envoy was clear, however, that Hamas “cannot be allowed to come back into the government” in Gaza, saying the group that has run Gaza for almost 20 years, “has to go. They’ve got to leave.”

He could not say where the group’s remaining members should be sent, however, or who or what should be brought in to replace them as a governing body in the territory.

“I think the devil is in the details, and we’ve had a lot of discussions around it. I’m not at liberty to have that, that specific discussion today, but we’ve got some ideas, and that will be part of the negotiation,” he said.

Hamas said after the final exchange of phase one on Thursday that it was “ready” to engage in negotiations on the terms of a second phase. 

The news that Israeli negotiators were headed for Cairo, with the end of phase one looming on Saturday, will offer some hope to the families of the 59 remaining Israeli hostages — along with some 2 million Palestinians in Gaza and millions of people across the Middle East — for a continuation of diplomacy rather than a resumption of war.