Hamas to release three hostages Saturday

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00:00The Israeli government has just acknowledged receiving the list of names of hostages to

00:04be released tomorrow by Hamas.

00:06As expected, these are three adult men.

00:09One is the Franco-Israeli, Ofer Calderon, that the French government has been working

00:15pretty hard to release.

00:17The other is Keith Siegel, an Israeli-American.

00:20Similarly, Steve Witkoff, who we were just talking about, has made big efforts to ensure

00:25that one of the two Americans still left in Gaza would be released this weekend.

00:31And finally, the third man is Yarden Bibas, a 36-year-old from the kibbutz of Niroz, who's

00:37become a kind of cause célèbre, because he was taken by Hamas on October 7.

00:44And separately from him, his wife Shiri and his two small children, Kfir and Ariel, became

00:51very famous because of the images of their kidnapping, with his wife holding the two

00:56babies in her arms with their red heads and sobbing.

01:01The Israeli government has requested from Hamas information about the condition of Shiri,

01:07Ariel, and Kfir Bibas, but none has been forthcoming thus far.

01:12So all we know is that he's expected to emerge tomorrow by himself without the rest of his

01:17family.

01:18And Israel will continue to follow that swap tomorrow on French 24.

01:22Some developments today in Rafah, Noga, what can you tell us?

01:27Well, quite a bit.

01:28So the ceasefire agreement signed a few weeks ago stipulated that the Rafah border crossing,

01:34which is the crossing between Gaza and Egypt, would be open next week.

01:39It has already been open today, so that's a bit of a surprise.

01:43Israel agreed to that.

01:44And that means that Israel withdrew its forces.

01:46So we are unclear at this point on who is staffing the Gazan side of this Egypt-Gaza

01:53crossing.

01:54In other words, the Egyptian authorities obviously are on their side of the border.

01:59And we don't know, is it Hamas?

02:01Is it members of the Palestinian Authority, the way the international community has requested

02:07but Israel has rejected?

02:09It's the weekend here.

02:11In Israel, government authorities aren't really responding to questions.

02:14And that is a big one, especially for Prime Minister Netanyahu, who has promised his base

02:22for months that neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority, which he refers to as equal terrorists,

02:28that neither one will be in charge of such a crucial place.

02:32So that is a big question that we're going to be following up on in the next few days.

02:37In addition, responding to those comments by President Trump that you just cited, saying

02:43he was going to clear out Gaza, there is a significant protest of people, some of

02:49them Gazans, on the Egyptian side of that border crossing.

02:53So having opened it, Egypt is giving the United States a signal here that it is allowing people

03:00to protest against the U.S. president under the guise of just a popular spontaneous protest.

03:06But by opening that border, they have allowed this to take place.

03:11Obviously, we don't know what President Trump's ultimate intentions are.

03:15But at this point, there's absolutely zero Arab partners for his idea of emptying out Gaza.

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