Ceasefire takes effect after Hamas names the three women hostages to be freed Sunday
Romi Gonen, Emily Damari and Doron Steinbrecher to be freed on first day of truce after Hamas delayed list of names; will be met by IDF representatives, doctors, psychologists

The Hamas terror group gave Israel the names of the three female hostages to be released later in the day, allowing weapons in Gaza to go silent as a long-elusive ceasefire went into effect after a brief delay Sunday morning.
The families of Romi Gonen, 24, Emily Damari, 28, and Doron Steinbrecher, 31, confirmed that they were to be freed Sunday afternoon, marking the first hostage swap since late November 2023, with 94 people kidnapped from Israel during the October 7, 2023, onslaught still held in captivity, along with three others held for around a decade.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office confirmed late Sunday morning that it had received the list of names from Hamas, announcing that a ceasefire would go into effect at 11:15 a.m. after defense officials went over the details of Hamas’s list.
While Hamas published the names it said it handed over to Israel, the Prime Minister’s Office initially asked Israeli media not to publish their identities until authorized by their families.
The ceasefire and pending release will cap a yearlong international effort to get both Hamas and Israel to agree to a deal meant to end the war sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack and free the rest of the hostages, with 33 captives set to be released over the next 42 days in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.
But it also marked the start of a fraught three-stage process yet to be fully hashed out, with many in Israel and Gaza fearful that it could fall apart before reaching a so-called “day after,” leaving scores still in captivity and plunging the Strip back into devastating conflict.
Romi Gonen’s friends learn she will be released today ❤️ pic.twitter.com/gf8Nq7XVXQ
— Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) January 19, 2025
Initial delays
Several tense hours preceded the start of the ceasefire, with Hamas twice missing deadlines to hand over the list of hostages to be freed and Israel refusing to halt its fire until the terror group produced the names, raising concerns of the deal suffering a wrench in the works before even coming into effect.
Under the ceasefire-hostage release agreement signed in Doha early Friday and ratified by Israel early Saturday, Hamas is required to provide the names of the hostages at least 24 hours ahead of their release — which was expected to be on Sunday at around 4:30 p.m.
But 4 p.m. on Saturday came and went, and by Sunday morning, the terror group still had not confirmed which three of the 97 hostages were slated for release later in the day. It finally sent the three names at around 10 a.m.

With the ceasefire set to go into effect at 8:30 a.m., Netanyahu had warned Saturday night that Israel would continue fighting until the list was received.
“Israel will not tolerate violations of the agreement,” a statement released by his office added. “The sole responsibility lies with Hamas.”
Israeli warplanes continued to pound the Strip Sunday morning, killing at least eight people, according to Hamas-controlled health authorities. The toll could not be confirmed and it was not known if the eight were combatants or civilians.
“The IDF is continuing to strike now in Gaza, as long as Hamas is not fulfilling its obligations to the deal,” Israel Defense Forces spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said just as the ceasefire had been slated to begin.

A source from within Hamas claimed to the Ynet news site on Sunday morning that the delay in handing over the names was purely due to “technical reasons,” adding that the list had to be approved by Hamas leader Muhammad Sinwar.
According to the source, Hamas operatives communicate “physically via emissaries and it takes time to agree on the names and the location of the hostages when IDF planes are still above them.”
Israel had anticipated the moments before the ceasefire could be marred by barrages of Hamas rockets into Israel, as has happened in the past. There were no reports of rocket fire, though sirens went off twice in communities near Gaza due to false alarms, the IDF said.
How releases set to unfold
Following the release of the names, Gal Hirsch, the government’s point person on the return of the hostages, spoke with the families of the three female hostages expected to be returned Sunday, the PMO said.
Once freed, the former hostages will be brought to one of three complexes set up by the IDF near the Gaza border, at Re’im Base, the Kerem Shalom Crossing and the Erez Crossing, depending on the location of their release.
Upon arrival, the hostages will meet with IDF representatives, doctors, psychologists, and mental health officers, and receive initial treatment.
From there, they will be escorted by the IDF to hospitals, where they will meet their families.
The IDF estimates that it will be some two hours from the moment the Red Cross hands over the hostages to troops in Gaza, and until the moment they head from the army facilities to a hospital.
Three women civilians
Gonen was kidnapped from the Nova music festival as she tried to escape the terrorist onslaught. She told her mother she had been shot before losing contact. “It’s official, Romi is on the list. Good luck to all of us,” Gonen’s brother Shahaf Gonen posted on social media shortly after the list was released.
Damari was taken hostage on October 7 by Hamas terrorists who attacked Kibbutz Kfar Aza, killing, assaulting and abducting dozens to Gaza. She is a British-Israeli dual citizen whose last message was around 10 a.m. on October 7, when she wrote that terrorists were in her neighborhood and shooting around her apartment.
Like Damari, Steinbrecher, a veterinary nurse, was kidnapped from Kfar Aza.
Also as part of its preparations ahead of the ceasefire, the IDF on Saturday declared the Nitzana Crossing area on the Egypt-Israel border a closed military zone and extended closed military zones in the Yad Mordechai and Kerem Shalom area until at least January 24.
More aid for Gaza
In the hours leading up to the start of the deal, Hamas-affiliated media reported that Israeli troops were withdrawing from Gaza’s Rafah, which shares a border crossing with Egypt, in anticipation of the start of the ceasefire.
Troops were said to be regrouping along the Philadelphi Corridor on the Gaza-Egypt border.
There was no comment from the IDF on the reports.

Hundreds of aid trucks were waiting at the Gaza border ahead of Sunday, poised to enter from Egypt as soon as they get the all-clear to deliver desperately needed aid to the Palestinian territory.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty said 600 trucks a day would enter Gaza after the ceasefire takes effect, including 50 carrying fuel.
The majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have been displaced by the war, many more than once. According to an IDF assessment last July, some 1.9 million people were residing in the Israeli-designated “humanitarian zone.”
Some 95 Palestinian prisoners to be freed Sunday
The Palestinian prisoners to be freed in exchange for the three hostages will not be released before the first hostages are expected back in Israel. Some 95 prisoners are to be released in exchange for the three Israeli women.
In exchange for all 33 hostages to be freed in the 42-day first phase of the deal, Israel will, by the end of phase one, hand over up to 1,904 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, including several serving multiple life sentences for deadly terror attacks and murders.
Israeli and Hamas negotiators signed the hostage release and ceasefire agreement in Doha in the early hours of Friday morning. The successful deal was initially announced on Wednesday, but the negotiating teams continued meeting afterward in order to iron out final implementation details.
It was approved by Israel’s security cabinet on Friday afternoon, and then by the full cabinet on Friday evening, in an hours-long discussion and vote that extended long into the night.
Of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas during the October 7, 2023, invasion and massacre in southern Israel, 94 are believed to remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.

Hamas released 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released before that. Eight hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 40 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the Israeli military as they tried to escape their captors.
Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the body of an IDF soldier who was killed in 2014. The body of another IDF soldier, also killed in 2014, was recently recovered from Gaza in a clandestine Israeli military operation.
Trump’s role
In light of the deal secured in Doha last week, some have pointed to US President-elect Donald Trump as having made the difference in the negotiations, after he dispatched his Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff to the region earlier in January.
Witkoff was rumored to have leaned heavily on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to pave the way for the breakthrough in negotiations.
A source familiar with the conversations between Witkoff and Netanyahu told the Wall Street Journal on Saturday that Witkoff had reminded the premier that Trump “has been a great friend of Israel,” and suggested it was now “time to be a friend back.”
According to the same report, Trump’s frequent threats of there being “hell to pay” should the hostages not be released by the time he enters the White House on January 20 were not aimed solely at Hamas, but also at Netanyahu.

Trump, on Saturday, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he expected the hostage deal to hold throughout all three of its multi-week phases.
Asked if he was confident that the hostages held by Hamas would soon be freed, Trump said “We’re going to see very soon,” and warned that the agreement “better hold.”
He also told the media outlet that he would be meeting with Netanyahu “fairly shortly,” but declined to elaborate further.
According to a report Saturday, his incoming national security adviser Mike Waltz told the families during a meeting that the Trump administration would make sure that all phases of the ceasefire and hostage release agreement were implemented after the families expressed concern that Netanyahu’s government would resume fighting after the first 42-day phase of the deal, putting the lives of their relatives slated for release in the second and third phase at risk.
The concern followed recent comments by far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who claimed he had received assurances from Netanyahu that Israel would resume fighting after the first phase, the Axios news outlet reported.
Netanyahu: Temporary ceasefire
In comments of his own on Saturday evening, Netanyahu all but avoided acknowledging the second and third phases of the deal, during which the remaining 65 hostages are to be released and a permanent ceasefire instituted in Gaza.

Instead, in a 10-minute-long pre-recorded video, the premier referred to the first stage of the deal as a “temporary ceasefire,” and stressed that both Biden and Trump had underlined that Israel could return to fighting in Gaza if the next stages of the deal are not realized.
The Strip’s Hamas-run health ministry says more than 46,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters.
Israel says it has killed some 18,000 combatants in battle as of November and another 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.
Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border of the enclave stands at 407. The toll includes a police officer killed in a hostage rescue mission and a Defense Ministry civil contractor.