Explaining the categories, TV report says US plan would see 400 Palestinian prisoners freed for 40 hostages
Channel 12 sets out what it says is the American proposal for a key part of a potential new hostage release deal with Hamas: the number and nature of the Palestinian security prisoners who would be released in exchange for hostages held captive in Gaza since October 7.
In all, the report says, the US proposed at the Paris talks on Friday that some 400 Palestinian terror inmates would be released in exchange for 40 Israeli hostages within the intended six-week truce.
Twenty-one Palestinian security prisoners would be freed by Israel in exchange for the seven Israeli women who were to have been released on the final day of the previous truce, at the end of November, when Hamas reneged on the terms and the truce collapsed; a three-to-one ratio.
Ninety Palestinian security prisoners would be released in exchange for five Israeli women soldiers held hostage; an 18-to-one ratio. Fifteen of those prisoners would be major terrorists with blood on their hands, including several mass murderers.
Another 90 prisoners would be released in exchange for 15 men aged over 50 among the hostages; a six-to-one ratio.
One hundred and fifty-six prisoners would be released in exchange for 13 Israeli male hostages who are ill or injured; a 12-to-one ratio.
Finally, according to the Channel 12 report, some 40 additional Palestinian security prisoners who were freed in the 2011 deal for the release of abducted soldier Gilad Shalit, but who were since rearrested for further terrorist activities, would also be freed.
The report, which is unsourced, says the US proposal was put on the table in Paris, where the US, Israel, Egypt and Qatar agreed on a new framework proposal for the potential deal.
It notes that despite US President Joe Biden’s optimistic talk yesterday of a hoped-for deal by March 4, Israel remains pessimistic about an imminent deal coming to fruition.