If Hamas gives a positive response, implementing deal can start immediately, PM said to tell families

Meeting with representatives of the hostages’ families earlier today, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly told them that a deal was “days or hours” from being finalized. “We are waiting for Hamas’s [positive] response and then it will be possible to start [implementation] immediately.
According to a Channel 12 report on part of the meeting, one of the relatives stressed that the families are deeply worried that the deal will collapse after phase one, which provides for the release of 33 hostages. Netanyahu said in response that talks on phase two would commence on the 16th day of phase one “and we won’t leave Gaza until all the hostages are returned.”
Asked why the wait until day 16 to start the phase two talks, Netanyahu reportedly said, “The negotiations now are about all [of the hostages], but the deal will be in phases. Ultimately, we’re dealing with a murderous terror group. You have to start with something in order to get the rest moving. I will do everything to bring everybody home — the living and the dead.”
The families also asked him why the deal could not have been done months ago, and he reportedly responded that Israel now has “an envelope” of support from incoming president Trump.
He also reportedly spoke of the deal providing for “a protracted ceasefire” in return for all the hostages, rather than an end to the war.
Netanyahu was supposed to meet earlier today with representatives of the hawkish Gvura Forum of families of hostages and fallen soldiers. Channel 12 says the meeting was delayed while the Forum weighed canceling it because of their opposition to the deal, but that they decided to go ahead and are now sitting with the prime minister.