Game on ... maybe?

Ink finally met paper in Doha overnight, according to the Times of Israel, cementing an operational pause and the exchange of hostages for prisoners with Hamas. Officially this requires a vote from the security cabinet (which has already approved the deal) and then the full cabinet for approval, but that is nearly a formality at this point.

On the Israeli side, anyway:

Israeli and Hamas negotiating teams signed a Gaza hostage release and ceasefire deal in Doha early Friday, after the final hurdles stalling finalization of the agreement were cleared.

Confirming the deal was completed, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the security cabinet would convene on Friday to vote on it, before the full cabinet was expected to follow suit on Saturday night.

Though this was initially expected to push off the scheduled release of the first group of hostages from Sunday until Monday, officials said on Friday the ceasefire and release would start Sunday as planned.

Will Hamas actually follow through, or will they balk yet again and attempt another round of the Hamas Hokey Pokey? Don't put anything past them, but they do face a real deadline for action. Donald Trump takes office on Monday and has pledged there will be "hell to pay" if Hamas continues to hold Americans hostage. 

That might be complicated, however. ABC News notes that most of the American hostages are dead, and one of those who may be still alive had been an IDF veteran. That means his release will be a few weeks off, at best:

The release of three American-Israeli hostages who are alive will be included in the agreement, though in two different phases, a senior White House official told reporters on Wednesday.

Sagui Dekel-Chen, 36, and Keith Siegel, 65, are both expected to be released, with Sigel qualifying for release due to age, and Dekel-Chen qualifying because of injury, according to the official who noted he was shot on Oct. 7, 2023, when the conflict began with a terrorist attack by Hamas in southern Israel.

Edan Alexander, 20, will be in the second phase of releases because of his service with the Israel Defense Forces, according to the official. The official noted that he spoke with Alexander's father last night, and that the U.S. remains fully committed to getting him released.

Somewhat unusually, the list of the hostages to be released in Phase I has already been published. In the previous exchanges, the names of the hostages freed were kept quiet until after the exchange took place. The Jerusalem Post has the names of the 33 hostages that Hamas will exchange, although it's not clear whether they are all still alive:

The names are: Liri Albag, Itzhak Elgarat, Karina Ariev, Ohad Ben Ami, Ariel Bibas, Yarden Bibas, Kfir Bibas, Shiri Bibas, Agam Berger, Gonen Romi, Daniella Gilboa, Emily Damari, Sagui Dekel Chen, Iair Horn, Omer Wenkert, Alexandre Sasha Troufanov, Arbel Yehoud, Ohad Yahalomi, Eliya Cohen, Or Levy, Naama Levy, Oded Lifshitz, Gadi Moshe Mozes, Avraham (Avera) Mengisto, Shlomo Mantzur , Keith Samuel Sigal, Tsachi Idan, Ofer Kalderon, Tal Shoham, Doron Steinbrecher, Omer Shem Tov, Hisham Al-Sayed , Eli Sharabi. 

As ABC deduced (or was told), Chen and Sigal (Siegel in ABC's report) will be among the first group to return to Israel on Sunday. Alexander will remain in Hamas captivity until at least Phase II and perhaps Phase III, assuming Hamas sticks to the deal long enough to reach either of those phases. 

Israelis will watch closely to see whether the children captured will return alive. The plight of Kfir and Ariel Bibas has gripped their nation, ever since the video of their abduction along with their mother Shiri emerged after October 7. Hamas has suggested in its propaganda that they are all dead, but there is still hope for their survival with their names on the Phase I list:

The Bibas family is among the highest-profile hostages still held in Gaza. Ariel, 4 years old at the time of his abduction, and Kfir are the only children left after an earlier deal in November 2023 that saw the release of more than 100 of the 251 people seized in the onslaught by Hamas terrorists the previous month, in which some 1,200 people were killed, mostly civilians, on the deadliest day in Israel’s history.

At the time, Hamas said the children had been killed along with their mother. Israel said it was investigating that “cruel” claim but has not confirmed it, and the IDF has since said it has no intelligence to confirm their status. ...

After announcing their death in November 2023, Hamas released a video showing Yarden, their father, who was abducted separately and had been told his family was dead. In February 2024, the IDF found more footage from surveillance cameras in Khan Younis of Shiri, Kfir and Ariel’s abduction.

Prepare for heartbreak, hope for joy. That has been the story of this war since it began October 7.

It's also the story of Israel and the Israelis, and a new poll finds them very hopeful about this deal. Almost three-quarters of Israelis support the deal announced on Wednesday and finally signed early today, a signal that Netanyahu may be far stronger than some of the hardline-Right ministers have calculated:

Some 73% of Israelis favor a hostage deal to return the hostages held in Hamas captivity to Israel, according to a Maariv poll published on Friday.

Israel and Hamas signed the deal in Doha in the early hours of Friday. 

The poll also showed that 19% of the public opposes the deal, and 8% have no opinion on the matter.

A significant difference also emerged between opposition party voters, nearly all of whom (91%) supported the deal, and current coalition party voters, where a small majority (52%) were in favor, and a significant minority (37%) were opposed. 

It's not all peaches and cream for Netanyahu, though:

Additionally, according to the poll, 45% of the public believed that the government was only partially meeting the war goals, while 36% thought the government did not meet them at all.

What do these numbers tell us? Getting the hostages back was the top "war goal" for the Israeli electorate, by far. It also suggests that Netanyahu may not have managed expectations well, although one can also suggest that the Israelis may not fully appreciate what has taken place in the last few months. Netanyahu eviscerated Hezbollah and indirectly toppled Iran's puppet regime in Syria, cutting Tehran off from their borders for at least a long while. The war may end up with Hezbollah kicked out of Lebanon too, although that's still an ongoing issue. 

The hostage deal will make them happy, at least for now. In the long run, though, it will incentivize the next hostage crisis, and the next one after that, and so on. At some point, the Israelis will have to reduce the value of hostaging to zero if it wants to stop having to cut these deals in the future.