Israel to release 50 Palestinian prisoners including 30 serving life sentences for each female soldier hostage

According to a draft of the deal being negotiated between Israel and Hamas, Israel will pay a steep price to secure the release of female soldiers being held hostage, according to a copy of the agreement obtained by The Associated Press.

The three-phase agreement would begin with the gradual release of 33 hostages over a six-week period, including women, children, older adults and wounded civilians, in exchange for potentially hundreds of Palestinian women and children imprisoned by Israel.

Among the 33 would be five female Israeli soldiers, each of whom would be released in exchange for 50 Palestinian prisoners, including 30 convicted security prisoners who are serving life sentences.

During this first, 42-day phase, Israeli forces would withdraw from population centers, Palestinians would be allowed to start returning to their homes in northern Gaza and there would be a surge of humanitarian aid, with some 600 trucks entering each day.

The deal would allow Israel throughout the first phase to remain in control of the Philadelphi Corridor, the band of territory along Gaza’s border with Egypt, which Hamas had initially demanded Israel withdraw from. But Israel would pull out from the Netzarim Corridor, a belt across central Gaza where it had sought a mechanism for searching Palestinians for arms when they return to the territory’s north.

In the second phase, Hamas would release the remaining living captives, mainly male soldiers, in exchange for more prisoners and the “complete withdrawal” of Israeli forces from Gaza, according to the draft agreement. But Hamas has said it will not free the remaining hostages without an end to the war and a complete Israeli withdrawal, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has in the past vowed to resume fighting unless Hamas’s military and governing capabilities are eliminated.

In a third phase, the bodies of remaining hostages would be returned in exchange for a three- to five-year reconstruction plan to be carried out in Gaza under international supervision.