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this is cnn breaking news. this is the breaking news. and this is it. this 13 hostages held in gaza by the terrorists are now being turned over at this minute. the latest understanding is that they have been turned over or are in the process of being turned over to the red cross officials in khan yunis. you see where khan younis is. and this is less than ten miles, and less than 20-minute drive from place-to-place, and so this process could be very, very quick. again, 13 hostages in the process of being turned over, and our understanding all along is that this is children and also women. this is part of the deal that

was brokered that would release 50 hostages from inside gaza over the next four days in exchange for some 150 palestinian prisoners inside of israel and also some humanitarian aid coming inside of egypt and some other things around the margins. our understanding is that this process is under way, and it is developing by the minute. and one of things that we are watching is abigail adon who turns 4 years old today, and her parents were killed by hamas terrorists and unclear, we are told that americans would not be part of the exchange today, but it is one thing that we are watching for very, very closely. okay. let's get back to kaitlan collins in tel aviv to get the latest of what you are hearing at this very minute, kaitlan. >> yeah, john. obviously, this process is painstaking. it is developing minute-by-minute here as we

watch it happen. what we do know now is that they are in the process of handing over the 13 israeli hostages to red cross, which is the group that we knew would receive them and facilitating their move from there in gaza to where you pointed it out on the map to not far in egypt. once they are processed in egypt, then they will be helicoptered here to israel. but regardless, john, this is what we are seeing now as the process is under way. one of the biggest diplomatic breakthroughs since october 7th. we have seen a few hostages come out before total so far, but this is the largest group so far, and we are also hearing in addition to the 13 israeli hostages 12 thai nationals also held in gaza are also handed over is what we are hearing from the egyptian officials, and so a lot of the tracking developments, and we are tracking them all, and team across the region covering every single angle of this hostage release now under way as we are

monitoring it very closely, and waiting to hear confirmation from the israeli officials when they will publish a list of the 13 to be released. becky anderson is tracking this from doha. and becky, you been hearing about this process, and what is the latest that you are hearing? >> so, there is an operations room set up here in qatar, the heart of the mediation of course between israel and hamas not talking directly. qatar is mediating the talks and getting them over the lines. there is an operations room set up here with the members of the mediation team intimately involved with those on the ground and with the icrc, and they are tracking this minute-by-minute, and obligations baked in on both sides and one of those was that the hamas would release the 13 women and children today into the hands of the icrc who will then deliver them to the idf in

israel. as we understand it and as we speak now that process is under way and some of the hostages i am told by diplomatic sources have been handed over, but there is still an ongoing process. we have to assume that none of this is going to be easy. there may be slight delays given it is just over an hour since the scheduled departure of these hostages from hamas' hands wherever they were being kept. the deal had baked in a four p.m. release. it is an hour ago, and i have to say that many people who are intimately involved with what is going on is quite surprised it is happening as quickly perhaps as it has. those hostages are now in the process of being handed over. we do not know where they will enter israel from. certainly, they will be coming

out of gaza, and gaza-israel or egypt into gaza, that is not clear at the moment. there is proof of concept for this. we have had the release of two sets of prisoners over this, over this conflict. both mediated by the catdres, ad the confidence is why this process is going to work as well, because there is no trust between either of the parties. there were very specific obligations built-in, embedded in the deal on both sides, and they both had to understand their obligation, and when we are seeing the handover of the hostages and indeed the fact

they are on safe israeli soil or see the release of the palestinian prisoners, the 39 palestinian prisoners held in israeli jails which is a very impointer point, and exchange of individuals. individuals held by hamas for palestinian prisoners held in israeli prisons. so at this point, i am told by those intimately involved, things are going according to plan, and a little bit of the delay on the humanitarian aid, and that is a very important pillar here, and the activity when this truce was to begin at 7:00 a.m. local time, but mostly, this is going to plan, and this is the part that is so delicate. it includes children. we don't know who. we do know that there is a baby as young as 10 months old being held hostage, and we don't know whether that baby is going to be

transferred today. we know that 4-year-old abigail, the american citizen is being held hostage, and we are told by american sources that it is very unlikely that any americans will be let out today, but that is the sense of how delicate this is. there are kids involved in this. women and elderly women. this is a really, a really fragile operation. >> absolutely, and that baby spent a month of his life held by hamas. and so as we get a list of the hostages in doha, we will check back in you, and jeremy diamond is near the israel-egypt border, and kerem shalom which is one of the two locations where we have heard that the hostages could be entering to come in through israel today, and what are you

seeing, jeremy, right now? >> yeah, that is right, kaitlan. effectively two locations that once these hostages go into egypt, they could potentially be coming into israel. one of them is a crossing which is further this way over my right shoulder, and the other is the kerem shalom crossing where we know there is a history of deals where going from rafah through egypt and then from kerem shalom, and that is the case of judith and natalie who just a few weeks ago were released on what they called the humanitarian grounds and accompanied by an israeli official via that kerem sha loan crossing. there is a road here where earlier today, we saw buses and vans headed in the direction of the crossing. but i cannot confirm if there is a connection with the hostage release, but if indeed as i have

been told that the hostages would be brought to a nearby air force base, and if that happens, it is right over my shoulder. there is a road here that goes north effectively in the direction that they would need to go to get to an air force base. so we could be witnessing that scene here as soon as those hostages are brought into israel and they are sent on their way to that air force base. that is the first opportunity for those 13 hostages to get evaluated medically and crucially to speak with their families who they have not had any contact with for nearly 50 days. so this moment of pain and anticipation and anxiety and just a mix of emotions that israelis across the country have been feeling, but of course, their families. it is now coming to a boiling point, and it is coming to the inflection point here, and we could see that moment happen very soon. >> all right. jeremy diamond, thank you. i also wanted to note that we

are hearing from the israeli source right now telling me that all 13 of the israeli hostages are now in egypt. that is a moment that we were watching earlier, and they are being handed over to the red cross in gaza and then transferred to egypt in ambulances and vans, and we are told by a senior israeli official that all 13 of the israeli hostages have made it to egypt, and that is next stopping point before they come here to israel, and wed are waiting to see more and hear more from the egyptian officials and we will continue to monitor that, because one of the places they could come is that the children are in the group of 13, and we have not confirmed it, but the chief international correspondent clarissa ward is outside of the children's hospital near the hel ipad wher some of the children could be sent where you are now, clarissa, and how are the employees now bracing for the potential arrival for the

hostages there? >> there is a huge amount of preparation that has gone into theer a rival, potential arrival of these children. and you can see the helipad and the blinking lights and the ambulances pulling up alongside those blinking lights and ambulances, and they are saying the staff has taken care of the specialized unit where they would be brought, these children and mothers. they will not be separating any children who come with their mothers. they said that the main objective as they were making the preparations is to ensure that it didn't look like a hospital or feel sterile or intimidating or frightening. so they have taken enormous pains to create what they called

almost a beautiful hotel experience with a lot of toys and a huge amount of staff who they say they have hand picked specifically to make sure that they are the most sensitive, the most experienced and the best psychiatrists, and obviously social workers on site, and each family, and each group of hostages within the 13 who end up here will have their own social worker appointed to them, and the objective is to make sure they have as calm and safe and intimate of space as possible, because as we have been discussing throughout the day, kaitlan, it is anticipated that the children will be exceptionally distressed. they have undergone a huge trauma, and we know and we have seen the guidelines and the comprehensive guidelines that were put out by the ministry of welfare for the idf soldiers who are currently going to be

embarking on the identifying the hostages and carrying out a cursory medical search to determine how much treatment they need and which hospital they have been sent to accordingly, but they are going to try to do it in the most sensitive way anyway. they are flagged, do not answer any questions of where is my mommy and daddy, and a lot of the children are orphans, and some don't know about it. and so everybody is whether it is at the hospital or the soldiers on the ground or the ministries are really trying to take painstaking care to ensure that everything is done to be as sensitive to the trauma that these hostages have undoubtedly experienced, kaitlan. >> yeah, it is hard to even imagine, clarissa ward, thank you. cnn's correspondent m.j. lee is also tracking this, because we don't expect americans to be in this group, but you have new

reporting of what is happening inside of the white house who is watching this as closely as all of us. >> that is right, kaitlan. the white house officials are watching this release in realtime and monitoring every movement going on right now. the president of course, himself, he is constantly being briefed by the top advisers as well. for u.s. officials there has been such an emphasis on this first day and this first release of the first group of hostages going well, because they believe that the first two days or so will really serve as a testing period of sorts that can pave the way for additional releases, and the additional days that are to come with more hostages hopefully to be released, and even though, kaitlan, last month we saw the two american hostages released successfully, it is an entirely different understand taking that we are talking about, because two people very

different from 13 hostages and now how today goes is significantly important for the white house, but they do not believe any americans to be released among the 13 women and children coming out of gaza. that means that presumably, they will be released on day two, day three or day four, and we have no way to know or predict exactly when we will see the american citizens, but again, the white house officials are closely monitoring the situation, and very much hoping that everything is going well without a significant hitch and without a significant delay because they really, really want this to go successfully, and have the americans released for that process to go well as well. >> yeah, it is a template for all of this. m.j. lee and jeremy diamond, thank you all very much. john, obviously, everyone is watching this closely, because this is truly developing by the minute as these hostages are

watching this handover under way, and with the ultimate goal and once people will breathe that sigh of relief in israel once they are and the ground which they are not yet, john. >> right, kaitlan. and we will find out what the moves are, and barak ravid from axios said that the hostages were turned over to khan younis. and they then go to the egyptian side of the rafah crossing and then we believe they will go to the south to the nitsyana crossing and then cross into egypt and then taken by helicopter here to the air force

base, and so from here to here, and that is where matthew chance is, and they will be flown to hospitals around the country from there. that's the sense of this journey, this odyssey that these 13 hostages that we do now understand are on egyptian soil right here. that is what they will be doing through. and again, they have been in captivity for some 48 days, and some of them are children, and so this is quite an ordeal for them. let's get to retired air force colonel cedric leighton, and if you can comment on this movement of these people, and the logistics of, this and the psychological terror, and how excruciating it has been for the people of israel to know they were a few miles away this whole time. >> yes, john.

from a psychological standpoint, to know that if you were a hostage and capture and spent so much time with these hostage takers and with the families and everybody involved trying to get these people out, it has been excruciating for many, many people from many, many country, and from the logistical standpoint, john, you are seeing the movement that is intricate, and ground movement from khan younis and then when you get into the rafah crossing, it is the egyptian responsibility, and then into the buss to the nitzana crossing, and then to the haretzim air force base, it

is going to be a triage situation from the psychological situation where the people will be put into the area where they can be in essence see or feel the presence of the israeli military there. the air force base is legendary air base. it is the very first air base that israel built from the ground-up in the late 1960s and it has f-15s and 16s and the air force academy is there, and it is a major place for them to be basically reintegrated into israeli society, and kind of through the military mechanism there and hopefully it is going to give them the feeling that all of these people, you know, in the military side and on the political side and the diplomatic side have been working with them to try to get them out, and trying to work this process and hopefully that is going to help them to

reintegrate into israeli society. >> cedric, as we are watching this, and again, the primary concern today is for the welfare of these 13 individuals and hopefully the dozens of others who will be released over the next few days, but there is an intelligence and military aspect to what is happening right now, because they know where they are, and they know where they were, and they were in khan younis and moving south here, and how much without drones flying can israel see of this from the intelligence standpoint, and what kind of intelligence can they gather from the turnover of these hostages? >> well, that is going to be really considerable, john. depending upon how much they can glean from the hostages as they are going to be debriefed, that debriefing is critical.

as the things are happening, the israelis have mechanisms to monitor this without drones. they might even have access to satellites overhead that can provide some degree of coverage. there are also some other mechanisms that they may have, if they have sources in any of the areas to monitor things as well. from a distance, the israeli forces that are positioned within gaza can also have a way of looking at some of the this, and they may see movements on the ground that indicate whether it is the red cross where they are, and where hamas is moving the hostages to and from which is the most sensitive part of this, because hamas is going to make every effort to make sure that the israelis do not know where the hostages were before they were transferred at khan younis and that is going to be the challenge from the intelligence perspective on the israeli side, and of course from the hamas perspective, they want

to keep it under wraps and minimize the degree of knowledge that the israelis will glean from all of the activities. but all of the activities have a signature, and that something that the intelligence agencies will be looking at very, very carefully. >> and keep in mind one of the hamas demands is that israel would not fly drones over southern gaza during this release, because they don't want to know where hamas is, and hide the hundreds or dozens of hostages remaining there. and so, cedric, of the 13 people turned over and moving somewhere along the egypt and israel border there, i want to talk about the military operations. near al shifa hospital, there has been more and more videos released of the tunnels they found underneath that hospital. they say it is a hamas command

center there underneath, and how much can they do in searching these tunnels as a military pause is under way in the next few days? >> they might be able to do quite a bit, john. because as far as i know or understand the agreement, there is no prohibition of the israelis to go through the areas they control, and the area underneath the al shifa hospital is one that the israelis are reporting and showing video of all of the tunnels they have found there. so what they will be doing is a lot of the basically equivalent of the forensic analysis. looking at the videos, you can tell the construction that was used in the building of these tunnels. you can see some pretty sophisticated rooms that are laid out just like you would lay out, you know, rooms in a house or apartment building. and it is something that will give some degree of an indication as to how thesem

radios or tunnels were used, and that is something that is going to be critical from the intelligence perspective for the israelis, and we will see more videos like this. >> colonel leighton, thank you very much. the news this minute, is that the hostages have been moved from khan younis and now in egypt through the rafah crossing and we believe they are headed back over the border to israel very shortly. we will bring you the very latest information. our special live coverage continues right after this.

all right. we are following breaking news at this hour, because right now, we are told that the hostages, the first ones to be released by hamas as a part of the deal that they have struck with israel is right now in the process of being released from gaza. that includes 13 israeli women and children, and we believe 12 thai nationals who were also had their release negotiated for by egyptian officials. eleni giokos is following this from cairo. we knew that the 13 were initially expected to be released, the israeli hostages to come to israel, but what can you tell us about the release of the thai nationalssimultaneousl? >> yes, this is a breakthrough moment here given that we have seen 13 israeli women and children released today, and you know, a big focus on that cessation of the fighting and importantly seeing aid passing

through, and then an hour ago we had the information coming through from the state information services in egypt announcing that egypt had intense negotiations with hamas, and secured the release of 12 thai nationals. now, whether they are going to be released today or in the coming days, that remains to be seen, and in terms of the actual number, they told me a short time ago this is still in progress. we know that we have heard from thailand as well from the thai officials, and they have confirmed that this is the expectation. but this is really big news, because you get the sense that the egyptians are able to negotiate in tandem with what is coming through with the qataris and israel and hamas, and able to secure the release of other foreign nationals apparently held hostage in gaza. >> and have we heard anything about what is the next step for these thai nationals? we have known that there is a

lengthy complicated process for the israeli hostages, eleni, and so do they stay in egypt or what is on the horizon? >> yeah, so that is a really good question, because everyone who is a foreign national or dual passport holder can come into egypt, and that is the process that we are seeing for many weeks now. we know that the egyptians have told us in tandem with this announcement that the rafah border crossing is waiting for hostages, and they mentioned that they are prepared and ready and waiting not only for the israeli hostages, but also for the thai hostages. in terms of the precedent that has been set, all of the foreign nationals would be coming through egypt and hosted here until an arrangement is made for them to leave, kaitlan. that is the anticipation given the fact that we have been seeing this playing out over the past few weeks. >> all right.

eleni giokos in cairo, we will continue to check in with you. oren liebermann is on the ground in tel aviv, and this is the start of what is a 96-hour process and not just the 13 hostages and the 12 thai nationals released, but m ultimately at least 37 more hostages released of how this is to go, and what are the israeli officials are saying this is happening so far on day one since we have seen this temporary truce going into effect? >> so far, the israeli officials that i have spoken with are pleased or be pleased with how it is going so far, and the process is not over yet, and the 13 women and children are not in israel yet, but they aret means the critical phase here. this is 13 of 50, and so 37 more

women and children coming out of the next 72 hours, the next three days. the idea of more changes to the last second and even once the process begins, there could be change, but crucially, the critical phases of the exchange of israeli hostages for palestinian prisoners, and the next thing we are waiting to hear from israel is that the palestinian prisoners are released. they are being held in the occupied west bank, and they will be released from israel, and then effectively the first stage or the first 24 hours begin to wrap up. at that point, we expect there is another list of israeli hostages that israel will receive of tomorrow's group of hostages to be released, again, women and children, and israel will go through, the prime minister's office and the government, they will go through the process of notifying that group of families, and again, the same agonizing wait to find out if the families here have loved ones on the list, and then all of this has to play out

again, and this is to say the truce, this pause in the fighting needs to hold for another period, and the humanitarian aid needs to continue going into gaza and then in about 24 hours from now, we will see another release of hostages if everything goes well. in terms of what is going on the ground in gaza, they will not allow passage from northern -- from south attern to northern g and that is one more element that has to function for this to go forward and then if this continues to the third day, then the extension of the deal of more release of hostages and palestinian prisoners. >> yeah, they seem to be focused on just getting through the first 24 hours of this agreement before thinking of what comes after that. oren liebermann, thank you. we are continuing to watch this live update as it is happening

minute-by-minute as the process is under way of the first hostages since this deal was struck by hamas and israel to have them released by hamas. with rewatching it all very closely and checking in with the sources and getting the latest. we w will be rigight back afaft ququick break.k. stay with usus.

all right. the breaking news. 13 hostages that have been in

hamas custody held by hamas terrorists for the last 48 days are in the process of being turned over to israel right now. this is what we know. barak ravid of axios says they were turned over in khan younis here in southern gaza, and the route then is going to take them south to the rafah crossing there, and once they go through the rafah crossing, they will be in egypt, and it is unclear if they have crossed the border to egypt, but that is the route we expect them to take. once inside of egypt, they will travel back south and back into israel at the nitzana crossing here. then we expect them from helicopter from nitzana here to an air base right here, an israeli air base right there, and it is from that air base after spending some time with people being checked out they will then travel by helicopter to hospitals around gaza. so you can see this round about

route. they are being taken from gaza, to egypt, to israel, to other sites in israel, and again, the 13 hostage, and the process is happening right now, and this is the first of what we believe is going to be at least four days of this. our kaitlan collins is standing by in tel aviv with the latest. kai kaitlan. >> yes, john. the ultimate destination for the 13 women and children who have been part of the first group to be released by hamas from gaza, and the ultimate destination is here in israel where they will be reunited with their families in addition to going medical checkups and interviews of the government officials of what the last few weeks have been like, and what we have heard from the idf is that the israeli helicopters are to be taking them to an air force base where

matthew chance is at that air base, and there is a lot of waiting to make sure that the hostages have made it back. and what are you expecting once the helicopters arrive? >> well, it is not so much when the helicopters arrive, but our understanding is that the hostages, once they are in israeli custody, they will be brought here by vehicles, by road. that could take an hour from when we have it confirmed in israeli hands, and we are about 30 miles or so from the haretzim air force base here in central israel. it will take an hour to get here, and the helicopters come into play after the 13 israelis released in the first group under the hostage deal have been for thought of a better word processed. they be getting the medical checkups straight away to see what the medical needs are and perhaps given food and water,

and a change of clothes, and many of them may have been weeks without that benefit, and there are shower facilities here as well, i amend told, and here, that process could take 30 minutes to an hour, and only then will they be boarding the helicopters that are prepared here. and given noise canceling headphones according to the idf press office given a statement on this to reduce the trauma of what is already going to be an incredibly situation for them. flown in the helicopters to the various hospitals around the country, and close to tel aviv and given further medical checkups that is required and obviously a very, you know, complicated and logistical operation, and the israelis say they are trying to handle it with as much sensitivity as possible, because some of them being children are coming into a

world that has dramatically transformed from the one they were violently torn from on october 7th, and some of them don't know, we are told, that their parents and loved ones have been killed. so, you know, the sensitivity in which these people have to be handled is incredibly important in the first initial contact in which they start the long journey back home, kaitlan. >> yeah. matthew chance, thank you for that. and john, matthew makes a great point that what all of these 13 believe that number is what they are coming back to is a completely changed world, and completely changed israel certainly for these hostages returning after being taken against their will into gaza on october 7th. it is just even hard to imagine what they have been through for the last several weeks, and you can see why the officials here at every step of the process they are going through are handling things so delicately.

>> kaitlan, we are looking at the live pictures of the rafah crossing, and this is the border between southern gaza and egypt, and why are we looking at that? that is because we are believing that they are going to be driven through there, and being handed over from the red cross officials from khan younis and taken over the rafah crossing, and that is what you are seeing the live pictures there, and then moved back into israel as matthew chance said to the air base there, and kaitlan, as you were saying, again, just imagine what these people have been through. the reporting that they will be given noise reducing headphones for the helicopter trip, and yes, they are doing everything they can to make the transition back into regular life more tolerable to ease it in, but to think of noise reduction head phones versus the days in

captivity and the knowledge they will learn in the next several minutes and hours over the fact that their loved ones and parents were murdered, this is going to be an excruciating period for them, kate. >> this is no return to everyday life, because it has been completely upended by what happened that day. and to speak to the significant, john, to what it means here in israel. everywhere you go, you see the fliers of the hostages, the ones that you see in the u.s. and london and -- you can see the convoy there, and we don't know who is inside of the convoy, but john, that convoy is making its way through the rafah crossing, and right now, there are cheers and horns honking.

>> again, we are looking at the pictures now from the rafah crossing of the convoy moving through with beeping and honking, and it is a red cross convoy, and we cannot know for certain who is part of the convoy, and if the hostages are a part of it, but you did hear some honking and some celebration there, and unclear to me where that celebration is coming from, and if it is the red cross convoy carrying the hostages, but we are seeing the activity at rafah right here which is a key transit point, kaitlan for the hostages as they move through. you brought up another point here, one of the things the devel developments and the twists today is not only has a number of hostages been turned over from hamas to the red cross believed to be israeli hostages,

but several thai hostages, and people from thailand who had been held, we understand that they have been turned over as well, and it is not completely clear if the two groups are traveling together or separately, kaitlan. >> yeah, that is still something that we are trying to figure out, and this is really fast-moving process. it is taking time for them to get from place to place, but there are several layers of government involved here, and different governments involved in the process. this is something that we had been hearing as israel and hamas were getting closer to the deal negotiated by qatar that there were other governments negotiating for their foreign nationals to be released by hamas, and a lot of these that had been taken into gaza, and the point of this of what we were hearing from the ideological perspective is that a lot of these were laborers at the kibbutz and they were not

jewish or israeli, and yet they were taken by hamas into gaza, and so that is something that we are watching here with the numbers, because it is a critical part of it, because we are told that it is 50 hostages released and we got this additional information from the egyptian officials that the thai nationals are also part of this, and it is still a question of whether or not they are moving in this group together and whether all of them were in the convoy that just passed through the rafah crossing, and those are ting thises that we will have better clarity on once they have made it through, and we know that there is going to be a published list from israel that said they will not publish this until they have made it through. and becky anderson has been tracking this closely, and so, becky, you are checking in also

with the thai nationals who are being released by hamas today, and what have you seen also about that red cross convoy passing through the rafah crossing? >> that is right. they have just left gaza through that crossing and making their way through the crossing and if you were doing that as a normal individual, it would take time to get through there, but clearly, the red cross convoy is going to be moving quickly through that crossing and into egypt. as we understand, the israeli hostages are moving in the same convoy as the thai nationals. the thai nationals, their release was a set for unconditional -- was a separate and unconditional deal and struck from the hostage deal hamas-israel that was baked into the wider pause. i did put this question about whether there was any separate tracks being negotiated by the

cadre of mediators to the minister of foreign affairs and he described it without answering it specifically, and he described it as a humanitarian effort. so i think that what we can understand from that is that the thai minister who was here in doha a week or so ago had successfully worked with the cadre mediation team with the support of the egyptians and others and including the united states of course who has been very, very involved in what has been going on between israel and hamas, and the thais have been able to pull off a separate and unconditional deal to ensure that some of the thai nationals who got caught up in this workers at the kibbutz have been released. now, we have to be clear that we are not absolutely sure of the numbers as we understood it. we were looking at 12 thai

nationals to be released into icrc hands today. of course, as we understood it, there are going to be 13 israeli hostages released by hamas as part of the main deal to be released into the hands of the icrc, and what we need to do now is to wait and see who is in those convoys and as they leave egypt and then make their way into israel if indeed that is what the thais are doing, and probably make a sort of the loose assumption that everybody is going to be traveling together now into israel, into the hands of the idf, and we have been reporting all morning, haven't we, about the sensitivities with which the idf are going to be dealing with the israeli hostages specifically, and we have to assume that, you know, they have got, and we know they have specific instructions of how the deal with the kids who are through this traumatic

ordeal. one cannot even imagine it. i'm a mom, but you don't have to be a mom to try and imagine what it is that everybody has been through, and not the least the little ones, and we don't know who has been released, but the thai authorities do know who is going to be releaseased in thei group, but we know they are traveling together in the convoy, and you have seen it going through the raf fauah crog into the egypt side, and so we have been saying this all morning nearly two hours after what is the scheduled release of the hostages, and this is happening a lot quicker than perhaps many people anticipated which is a good thing, and now, obviously, we have to wait and see what happens when we get some sort of eyesight on the

hostages as they are delivered to the idf and then obviously into the care of psychologists and hospital workers and medics, and some are going to be needing treatment, and we don't know whom or how they are at this stage, but it is at least just seeing the scenes of that red cross convoy to cheers going through that border crossing just suggests where we are at. this is biggest diplomatic breakthrough since the conflict began, and remember, a couple of weeks ago, the u.n. security council finally got a resolution through asking, pushing for, and not just one but multiple humanitarian forces at this stage we have one. it is four days plus an extension if hamas are prepared to release more hostages, but we will just see how it goes today, and whether all 25 hostages are indeed in that convoy, and whether those numbers are sufficient to suggest that hamas has fulfilled the obligations.

we don't know that, because we can't see who is in the convoys, but we know that it is expected to be 13 israeli hostages and 12 thais. at this point, we don't know how many people are in those cars. kaitlan? >> yes, becky, you are making a good point that you have to be a human being to appreciate what is happening in this moment. to recap for everyone who is watching at home and just tuning in what we are seeing is a key step in this process, the temporary truce that was negotiate bed tween israel and hamas with qatar acting as the intermediary, and what we saw happen is a convoy of red cross ambulances making their way through the rafah crossing coming from the gaza side, and we have not yet confirmed who is inside of that convoy, and that is what we are hearing from the sources that the hostages were going to be traveling through, and so we are still hearing from official confirmation of that, and you can see the moment of

that as they are making their way into the rafah crossing. as we continue to monitor all of this as it is unfolding truly minute-by-minute, jeremy diamond is near the southern israel/egypt border, and this is one of the two locations that we have heard, the israel-egypt border, and what is the latest that you are hearing? >> that is right, kaitlan. this is a crossing that we have quite a bit of history recent and longer. looking back a few weeks ago, the ranan, judith and her daughter came and met by the special minister for hostage affairs brought them in from israel from there. and going back to 2011 when

gillead shalif was met from egypt first and then from kerem shalom to israel. it is important the note that kerem shalom is from egypt and israel, and while it is not an official crossing point, it is used in the past for these situation, and also to conduct security checks on aid that is going from egypt into gaza for the israeli officials to verify the contents of those trucks. so there is a possibility for that release to happen here. the other option is the nitzana crossing which is between egypt and israel, and further southeast of our position where we are right now. and so, we will wait to see, but our understanding is that they will be coming via a convoy by land into israel and then by

land by buses to an air force base in israel. from there, that is the first opportunity to have contact with the families that they have not been able to speak to for nearly 50 days. they will have a medical evaluation to be taken to one of the several hospitals ready to receive them. but you have to think about the families of those 13 hostages who were released today, and also the families of those who are still waiting for their loved ones. you have to imagine some sense of hope when you are seeing the scenes of the convoy crossing into egypt, and being received that way, and knowing they are very, very close to finally getting back on to israeli soil. this is an ainge pssooi t--