A cease-fire between Israel and Hamas is set to begin on Sunday. In what is supposed to be the first phase of the agreement, 33 hostages held in Gaza since October 7, 2023, are to be released in stages over 42 days, the first three tomorrow. It’s believed that most, but not all, of those 33 hostages are alive. This first group includes children, women, men over 50, and men who are sick or wounded.

On the list of the 33 to be released are two of the dual U.S.-Israeli citizens, both of them believed to be alive: Keith Siegel, 65, and Sagui Dekel-Chen, 36. Keith’s wife, Aviva, was released in an earlier hostage deal. Sagui was defending his kibbutz on October 7 while his pregnant wife and two daughters hid in their safe room; he may have been wounded before being taken captive.

Edan Alexander, 20, who is from New Jersey and was serving as a volunteer in the Israel Defense Forces when Hamas invaded, will not be freed in the first 42 days. He was seen recently in a hostage video, so his family has some hope that he remains alive.

In August last year, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a U.S. citizen, was tortured and murdered in a tunnel; the IDF recovered his body. The bodies of U.S. citizens Omer Neutra, Judih and Gadi Haggai, and Itay Chen are being held captive.

The terms of the agreement involve the release of Palestinian terrorists, murderers, and other criminals from Israeli jails. That is one heavy price Israel is paying to set free hostages who are innocent victims of Hamas’s brutality, cruelty, and pathological Jew-hatred. As the Israeli journalist Nadav Eyal said, the hostages have suffered more than any Jews since the Holocaust.