Mediators have handed Israel and Hamas the latest draft of a hostage release and Gaza ceasefire agreement, an official with knowledge of the negotiations said. The document was provided to both sides after a "breakthrough" in consultations attended by envoys from Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
All but four of the hostages were captured in the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023. According to Israeli authorities, 98 hostages are still being held in Gaza. Among them are Israelis and foreigners, civilians and soldiers, men, women, two children, and the elderly. About half of them are believed to be alive.
Four of the hostages were held in Gaza in 2014. Two of them were soldiers and are now dead.
Here are some key moments from the hostage crisis.
2023
October 7 - Gunmen led by "Hamas" storm southern Israel. They kill 1,200 people and take 251 Israeli and foreign hostages, according to Israeli figures.
October 20 - Hamas releases two hostages with dual Israeli-American citizenship.
October 23 - Hamas releases two elderly Israeli hostages.
October 30 - Israeli forces rescue an Israeli soldier kidnapped on October 7.
November 21 - Israel and Hamas declare a week-long ceasefire, effective November 23. The aim is to exchange hostages held in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners in Israel, as well as to provide more humanitarian aid.
About half of the hostages - women, children, and foreigners - are released in exchange for 240 Palestinian women and adolescents held in Israeli prisons and detention centers. Fighting resumes on December 1.
Negotiations for a new ceasefire continue over the next few months, but to no avail. Israel says it wants only a temporary pause to release more hostages; Hamas says it will release more hostages only as part of a permanent ceasefire.
December 15 – Israeli forces mistakenly kill three Israeli hostages in Gaza. The incident sparks some of the sharpest domestic political criticism of the war.
2024
Throughout the year, the families of the hostages have campaigned to pressure Israeli leaders to reach a deal to free their relatives. The families have staged street protests, made almost daily appearances in parliament, met with world leaders, and given frequent interviews.
February 12 – The Israeli army says two hostages were freed in a special forces operation in the southern city of Rafah.
June 8 - Israeli forces rescue four hostages held by Hamas during an attack on the center of a residential neighborhood in Nuseirat. It is one of the deadliest Israeli attacks of the war.
August 27 - Israeli special forces extract an Israeli hostage from a tunnel in southern Gaza in a "complex rescue operation," the army says.
August 31 - Israeli soldiers find the bodies of six hostages in a Hamas tunnel in southern Gaza. Their deaths spark mass protests in Israel demanding the government reach an agreement with Hamas for the hostages. The Health Ministry estimates that the six were shot by their captors between 48 and 72 hours before they were discovered by Israeli forces.
December 2 - US President-elect Donald Trump warns that "hell" will descend on the Middle East if hostages held in the Gaza Strip are not released before his inauguration on January 20. Trump repeats this threat in the coming weeks as talks in Cairo and Doha on a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of the hostages gather momentum.
2025
January 8 - The body of Yousef Ziadne, an Israeli Bedouin taken hostage on October 7, 2023, is found in a tunnel in Gaza. Evidence has also been found that his son may also have been killed, the Israeli military says. The Israeli army later said the body of Ziyadne's son, Hamza, had also been found.
January 9 - Mediators from the United States and Arab countries have made some progress in their efforts to reach a ceasefire agreement between Israel and "Hamas" in Gaza, but not enough to conclude a deal, Palestinian sources close to the talks in Qatar say. (BTA)
Translation from English - Nikolay Velev, BTA