00:0020 of our living hostages to be released together at one time to the Red Cross
00:05and transported among six to eight vehicles without any sick displays by Hamas, the terror
00:11organization. The hostages will then be driven to forces inside of Israeli-controlled parts of Gaza
00:17and then transferred to the Reim base in southern Israel, where they will then reunite with their
00:22families. Israel is ready. If a living hostage requires any urgent medical attention, they will
00:28be brought to a medical facility immediately. The Prime Minister instructed Gal Hirsch, the
00:34coordinator for the captives and the missing, to arrange with the ICRC to have a convoy of
00:39ambulances ready for our hostages and all equipment needed in case a hostage needs immediate medical
00:45support, in which case both Soroka and Barzilai hospitals will be on standby. There will be
00:51medical staff accompanying the hostages during their entire journey back to Israel. From Reim,
00:56the hostages will travel with their families to one of three main hospitals. Ten hostages will be
01:03sent to Sheba Medical Center, five hostages at Bellinson, and five hostages will receive treatment
01:08at Ikhilaf. All three hospitals are prepared at all levels to receive them. Prime Minister Netanyahu
01:15visited Sheba Medical Center just the other day, one of the hospitals who will receive our hostages,
01:20and he examines the preparations for the hostages and their family members. The Prime Minister walked
01:26through the rooms they will be staying in with their family spaces as well, and control center to
01:32understand the enormous procedures that are in place to rehabilitate the hostages. Now, he praised the
01:38readiness of the medical teams who have experts on staff at all times to assist our hostages in any
01:44condition that they may be returning in. Our living hostages will face difficult tasks of physical
01:49and mental rehabilitation during this time. The entire nation of Israel will embrace them and
01:56help them get back on their feet and ensure proper Jewish burials for those who were taken from us.
02:02We are also ready and prepared to receive the bodies of our 28 hostages who have the living
02:09hostages after the living hostages are released. These hostages were either murdered by terrorists on
02:14October 7th, murdered in captivity or have been held in Gaza by terrorists since 2014. Now, once the Red
02:22Cross hands the remains to the IDF forces inside of controlled Israeli territory in Gaza, our forces will
02:29hold a short ceremony in the Gaza Strip during that handover. The coffins will be draped with Israeli
02:35flags and traditional Jewish memorial prayers for the dead will be said. The mourners' cottage prayer will be
02:42recited. The bodies will then be brought to the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute for Identification in the
02:47Yafo area. Now, following the ID process and in coordination with the Jewish law and, of course,
02:54tradition, their families will then be notified in an appropriate time frame to bury their loved ones in a
02:59timely fashion. Tomorrow will be a day of reunification and excitement for some families who have waited two
03:07years to embrace their loved ones, while other families will grieve the return of their loved ones,
03:13closing a painful circle with proper and dignified burials. An international body, which was agreed on
03:20in this plan, will help locate the hostages if they are not found and released tomorrow. The Prime
03:26Minister insists that we will act to locate all of these hostages as soon as possible, and we will do that
03:33as a sacred duty of communal responsibility. Now, we ask the media, please, to use utmost sensitivity
03:39when covering this story, as there are emotional complexities and trauma tied to the events to come.
03:46Next, let me address the visit of President Trump to Israel tomorrow. Prime Minister Netanyahu invited
03:52President Trump to speak at the Knesset. The President will arrive tomorrow around 9.20 a.m. at Ben-Gurion
03:59Airport. He will be welcomed by Prime Minister Netanyahu, Mrs. Sarah Netanyahu, and the President
04:05Herzog. The Prime Minister and President will then travel to the Israeli Knesset in Jerusalem for
04:11meetings, and the President will then address the Knesset around 11 a.m. The Prime Minister will turn
04:17Simcha Torah, the two years since our hostages were brutally taken, and Hamas launched a horrific war on
04:25Israel from a day of national grief to a day of national joy. I'll be taking some of your questions
04:31right now. Many of these questions that are actually listed in this chat have already been
04:41addressed. Many of you have been asking about the procedures for the release of our hostages,
04:46as like I said. The first question I'm going to take is from Joel Pollack from Breitbart News.
04:52He asked, what do you make of the fact that some participants in last night's demonstration
04:57booed the Prime Minister? Prime Minister Netanyahu has gotten us to this point. In cooperation,
05:05in coordination with President Trump, this is why we are here today, waiting for our hostages to
05:12return home. Through military, through diplomatic pressure, Prime Minister Netanyahu took risks,
05:17and those risks led us to this point. The first phase of this plan is releasing all of our
05:23hostages, and that was a dedication and a promise he made to those families. And here I am standing
05:28today telling you that the Prime Minister is following through on that promise.
05:33One of the questions that doesn't list the outlet is asking about the timing of Hamas,
05:44also referencing the reports that they could release the hostages at any point in time,
05:49like I said. And a statement that was released by the Prime Minister earlier today addresses that
05:54we are ready for our hostages whenever Hamas wants to release them. We are expecting them tomorrow,
06:00but if there is an early release, we will be there to receive them.
06:07Adam Parson, Sky News. Will Marwan Barghouti be released? I answered that last week. He is not
06:13part of this release. Going through the rest of these questions, like I said, a lot of them are repeats.
06:25There's a question from Beltrou from The Independent. If not all the bodies of the hostages are handed over,
06:35or if Hamas misses the deadline, would that be a violation of the deal? Let's get something
06:41straight. Israel is committed to this plan that was signed off on. All 48 of our hostages will be
06:47returning back to Israel, whether they are alive or deceased. Like I mentioned in this briefing before,
06:53there is this international committee that will be finding and helping locate any of the
06:59hostages' bodies if they do not, if they are not released tomorrow.
07:11Going through the rest of these questions.
07:13Recording in progress.
07:16From Ellie Ott, CBS News to everyone. She is asking, when will the Palestinian prisoners
07:21be released? And I do have an answer for that. I just want to grab this. Basically, what we're
07:28saying right now is that the Palestinian prisoners will be released once Israel has confirmation that
07:33all of our hostages set to be released tomorrow are across the border into Israel. And once we have
07:40that confirmation, we are expecting that the prisoners will already be on the buses. But once
07:44the confirmation comes through, they have crossed into Israeli territory, those buses will start
07:48and they will begin their journey. Thank you so much to everyone asking these questions. We
07:54appreciate it. Thanks for your time.
Comments