Hamas tried to see just how far they could push Israel this last week. After the horrifying images of last week’s exchange, it seemed they suddenly realized that they had an optics problem.

The only way to solve the problem? Delay handing over more hostages, in order to get the hostages looking more like themselves instead of conjuring up images of Holocaust survivors. However, they didn’t expect to run smack into the not-so-veiled warning by President Trump, that he would give Israel the green light if ALL the hostages were not returned by noon Saturday. Trump still believes that, as he said yesterday.

President Trump put the ball in Israel’s court – and the government made the decision to keep the deal. A poll says that 61% of Israelis want Phase One of the deal to continue. Netanyahu was listening.

In order to simply get the existing deal back on track, Netanyahu would have to reduce Trump’s demands without undermining the president’s negotiating authority. So the Israeli government put out a series of statements with vague language to buy it time to strategize with the White House. Then Netanyahu essentially put himself as the mediator between Trump and Hamas so that any reduction in America’s demands was seen as coming from the White House, preserving Trump’s place as the senior partner in the alliance.

In the end, the sides agreed that Hamas would release three hostages as originally planned and Trump gave his blessing without removing the implicit threat of his own impatience with Hamas: “If it was up to me, I’d take a very hard stance. I can’t tell you what Israel is going to do,” Trump told reporters this afternoon. Thus Trump can play off his initial threat as simply what he would do if he were in Israel’s shoes, not what he was planning on doing as U.S. president. Netanyahu looks reasonable but not weak. Hamas is back in compliance with the deal.

Had Netanyahu truly wanted the deal to collapse this week, it would have—because Hamas was the one who suspended the deal and Netanyahu had Trump’s backing to go back to war. The only reason that didn’t happen was because Netanyahu preferred the deal to restarting the war. Hopefully that will earn him some credit with the hostage families who have been suspicious of his motives until now.

The names of three hostages scheduled for release today were announced on Friday.

The three hostages to be released are Sagui Dekel-Chen, a 36-year-old dual U.S.-Israeli citizen, Alexander Trupanov, a 29-year-old dual Russian-Israeli citizen, and Yair Horn, a 46-year-old Israeli, according to statements from Hamas and Israel.

In exchange, Hamas said it expects Israel on Saturday to release 36 Palestinians serving life sentences in Israeli prisons. These are prisoners convicted for deadly attacks against Israelis. Hamas said Israel on Saturday would also send 333 Palestinians back to Gaza after they were arrested there by Israeli forces during the recent war.

Before the names were released, there were alarming reports about the condition of Trupanov, whose status as a Russian citizen had gotten the attention of their embassy.

Hamas says Sasha Troufanov "is not in good enough condition to be released". What have the monsters done to him???!!!! Starved, tortured, abused, and now they don't want the world to see the results of it, so they keep holding him?????

Sasha is Amazon employee. Amazon company… pic.twitter.com/5YOeoKEkn1

— lelemSLP (@lelemSLP) February 9, 2025

Palestinian Islamic Jihad then decided to put out a video of Trupanov just before his release. How nice of them.

Sagui Dekel-Chen has never met his youngest daughter, who was born after he was taken hostage. Iair Horn’s father has had no indication if he or his brother, both taken hostage, were still alive – until now. With the release of more hostages, more reports on who is still left alive are also being released. Each of those families is desperate to get their loved one or ones back alive. Both sides know that. And Hamas probably would have wrung more concessions out of Israel without the forceful backing of President Trump.

Once again, the International Red Cross (who has their feelings hurt because everyone thinks they are completely useless) showed up to play Uber. And then the three men were brought out in this now-familiar sick parade that pretends that these hostages were well cared for and being sent home with lovely parting gifts.

Iair Horn, Sagui Dekel-Chen, and Sasha Troufanov on stage holding the "gifts" handed to them by the barbaric terrorists that have held them for 498 days pic.twitter.com/Bl8rS0XG5X

— Aviva Klompas (@AvivaKlompas) February 15, 2025

The Red Cross then Ubered them over to the IDF, who got them out of Gaza. The people of Israel were waiting and rejoicing.
https://twitter.com/AvivaKlompas/status/1890680228873114099
Once the men are assessed by medical staff and reunited with their families, we will begin to hear their stories of horror and torture, as we are hearing from those who were recently released. The hearts of those with loved ones still being held captive will be filled with dread as they imagine what they are living through.

Israel is stuck with this terrible ceasefire deal, unless Hamas absolutely refuses to hand over any more hostages, alive or dead. The concern about the suffering of those still alive is simply too great to ignore, and the people have spoken. Every single hostage must be released. Will the comments by President Trump keep Hamas on track to hold up their end of the bargain? We are all going to be watching to find out.

Featured image: flag of Israel by edu_castro27 via Pixabay, cropped and modified, Pixabay license