If talks set to be held in Egypt on finalizing the technicalities of Hamas’s release of hostages under US President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan proceed smoothly, all the hostages could be released “within a few days,” a senior Israeli official told Channel 12 news on Saturday.

The talks are to be held from Sunday or Monday and will be attended by Hamas and Israeli delegations, US special Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. The presence of the Americans — who a US source confirmed to The Times of Israel will be traveling to Egypt this weekend — underlined the US determination to ensure the deal proceeds as planned, the source said. Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer is set to head the Israeli negotiating team.

The unnamed senior Israeli official said that the current fast-moving developments have been “fully coordinated” between Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and that the two leaders spoke by telephone on Friday, not long before Trump declared that he believes Hamas is “ready for peace” and told Israel to “immediately stop the bombing of Gaza, so that we can get the hostages out safely and quickly.” Israeli forces, indeed, shifted overnight to defensive operations in the Gaza Strip.

The source, evidently close to the prime minister, hailed the progress toward the potential imminent release of all the hostages as a “great achievement” for Netanyahu and Israel, since it represents “the possibility of getting all the hostages back home without Israel having capitulated to the Hamas demand for a full withdrawal from the Strip, as Hamas had demanded” for the past two years.

“No such deal was on the table until now,” the senior source told Channel 12. “Until now, Hamas demanded that Israel fully withdraw [from Gaza] and only then would the final hostages be freed.”

In similar remarks reported by Ynet, likely from the same source, it was claimed that “we’ve never had a deal like this — where we get back all the hostages, remain in Gaza, and continue negotiations.”

The source told Ynet that the talks in Egypt would likely last only a few days: “Nobody is going there to sunbathe. Witkoff wants to get it done and move forward.” It was certainly possible that Hamas would “try to torpedo” the deal, the source said, and Israel was prepared “for all possibilities.”

In the meantime, Ynet was told, the IDF had “reduced its fire” in Gaza, but “not ceased fire, so that Hamas can get organized to return the hostages as quickly as possible.” The IDF was not allowing Palestinians to return to Gaza City, the source also stressed.

Under the terms of the Trump proposal now to be finalized in Egypt, the source told Channel 12, the IDF would carry out “a tactical withdrawal,” but would remain deployed in most of Gaza even as all the hostages go free.

The source claimed Hamas has agreed to this arrangement, including the near-immediate release of all hostages, in part because of Trump’s relentless pressure, and thanks to pressure “from the Arab world,” which feared that Israel would indeed move to complete the takeover of all of Gaza, and was “catalyzed” by Israel’s controversial and unsuccessful attack on Hamas leaders in Qatar last month.

The Americans decided to “put their foot down,” Channel 12 said, with Trump determining that “we’re ending this now.”

Recognizing that Hamas was more susceptible to pressure than in the past, and with Turkey playing an important role, the source said, “a new proposal was put together to secure the release of all the hostages before anything else.”

If and when the hostages are freed, in exchange for large-scale releases of Palestinian terrorists and other prisoners, “there will then be discussions on Hamas laying down its arms, the demilitarization of the Strip, and the ‘day after'” in Gaza,” the source said.

The sequencing of the Trump proposal gives Israel a “huge advantage,” the source said, since Israel will get back the hostages on the one hand, while, on the other, the IDF will remain in most of Gaza as the negotiations on future steps are held.

In terms of the Israel-US coordination, the source said the possibility that Hamas would respond to Trump’s proposal with a “yes, but,” as it did, was discussed between Netanyahu, Witkoff and Kushner in Washington, DC. When Trump and Netanyahu spoke on Friday, said the source, the president made plain that if Hamas does not release all of the hostages as required, Israel can resume fighting — as Trump said publicly when unveiling his proposal at the White House on September 29.

The source said the 72-hour deadline for Hamas to release all the hostages would begin as soon as the “technical talks” in Egypt were completed, although it “might be extended a little in order for Hamas to locate all the slain hostages. Hamas officials have said the 72-hour window is “unrealistic” bercause it will take longer to locate all the slain hostages.

If the talks in Egypt play out as hoped, the bottom line is that “It will be possible to return the hostages within a few days,” Channel 12 quoted the source as saying.

The comments by the source close to Netanyahu contrasted with reports late Friday and earlier Saturday that the prime minister had been “surprised” by Trump’s immensely positive response to what was a conditional and ambiguous Hamas statement accepting his September 29 proposal.

Netanyahu does not regard Hamas’s response to the Trump proposal as positive, several Hebrew outlets had reported, citing people in Netanyahu’s circle. He and his circle “see it mainly as a negative response,” Channel 12 reported late on Saturday morning. “But they are going along with Trump’s efforts because they see no other option.”

Channel 12 also reported that Witkoff is heading to the region with detailed maps of the phased IDF withdrawal; on September 29, the White House issued a more illustrative map.

The source who spoke to Ynet specified that Israel would withdraw to the yellow line on the White House map and continue to “encircle” Gaza City when the hostages are freed.

The US knows that far-right coalition party leader Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir are likely to oppose the deal and potentially seek to bring down Netanyahu’s government, Channel 12 also said. It said Opposition Leader Yair Lapid reconfirmed to the US overnight that he would ensure the government does not fall by giving it a “safety net” in the Knesset.

The source told Ynet that Netanyahu would update Smotrich and Ben Gvir on the latest developments when Shabbat ends.