Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has approved the hostage deal with Hamas to be voted on by the security cabinet on Friday, a key step toward agreement.
In a statement translated from Hebrew and provided by the Government Press Office, Netanyahu said:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been updated by the negotiating team that agreements have been reached on a deal for the release of the hostages.
The Prime Minister has directed that the Security Cabinet be convened later today (Friday). The Government will be convened later in order to approve the deal.
Prime Minister Netanyahu expressed his appreciation for the negotiating team and all those who assisted.
The Prime Minister’s Office Authority for the Hostages and Missing has updated the families of the hostages.
The Prime Minister has also directed the Coordinator for the Hostages and the Missing to coordinate the preparations to receive the hostages upon their return to Israel.
The State of Israel is committed to achieving all of the objectives of the war including the return of all of our hostages, the living and the deceased.
The deal is said to include a first phase in which 33 Israeli hostages will be released, the majority of whom will be living, and two of whom will be American citizens. The remainder of the 100 or so hostages will be released later.
There will also be a further vote of the full Cabinet on the hostage deal. According to the Times of Israel, “A Netanyahu spokesperson says that the full cabinet meeting is not slated to take place until Saturday night, explaining that opponents of the deal must be given 24 hours to petition the High Court of Justice and a Friday afternoon meeting would not provide them enough time to do so because many of them are religious and observe the Sabbath.”
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
