
Three Israeli female hostages are being released as part of the first phase of a ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel
RAPPLER | Published January 19, 2025
Palestinian militant group Hamas said on Sunday, January 19, it would release three Israeli female hostages as part of the first phase of its ceasefire deal with Israel.
Israel has not confirmed the names of the three women and may not do so until they are handed over after 4 pm (1400 GMT), but the Hostages and Missing Families Forum did name them.
Romi Gonen
Gonen, a dancer, was 23 when Hamas gunmen abducted her from the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023. Gonen spent hours hiding from the gunmen with several friends before being shot in the hand. She was on the phone with her family when they heard her say “I am going to die, today”. The last thing they heard the attackers saying, in Arabic, was “she’s alive, let’s take her.” Her phone was later traced to a location in the Gaza Strip.
Doron Steinbrecher
Steinbrecher was a 30-year-old veterinary nurse who was taken to Gaza from her home in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, one of the communities worst hit in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel. A few hours after the attack began she phoned her parents to say she was scared and that the gunmen had arrived at her building. She then sent a voice message to her friends saying “They’ve arrived, they have me.”
Emily Damari
Damari, 28, is a British-Israeli who was abducted from her home in Kibbutz Kfar Aza. She grew up in London and is a fan of the Tottenham Hotspur soccer team. According to her mother, she was shot in the hand, injured by shrapnel in her leg, blindfolded, bundled into the back of her own car, and driven to Gaza. –
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SOURCE: www.rappler.com
RELATED: Ceasefire takes effect after Hamas names the three women hostages to be freed Sunday
Romi Gonen, Emily Damari and Doron Steinbrecher to be freed on first day of truce after Hamas delayed list of names; will be met by IDF representatives, doctors, psychologists
View of destroyed buildings in the northern Gaza Strip, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, on January 19, 2025 (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
THE TIMES OF ISRAEL | Published January 19, 2025
The Hamas terror group gave Israel the names of the three female hostages to be released later in the day, allowing weapons in Gaza to go silent as a long-elusive ceasefire went into effect after a brief delay Sunday morning.
The families of Romi Gonen, 24, Emily Damari, 28, and Doron Steinbrecher, 31, confirmed that they were to be freed Sunday afternoon, marking the first hostage swap since late November 2023, with 94 people kidnapped from Israel during the October 7, 2023, onslaught still held in captivity, along with three others held for around a decade.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office confirmed late Sunday morning that it had received the list of names from Hamas, announcing that a ceasefire would go into effect at 11:15 a.m. after defense officials went over the details of Hamas’s list.
While Hamas published the names it said it handed over to Israel, the Prime Minister’s Office initially asked Israeli media not to publish their identities until authorized by their families.
The ceasefire and pending release will cap a yearlong international effort to get both Hamas and Israel to agree to a deal meant to end the war sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack and free the rest of the hostages, with 33 captives set to be released over the next 42 days in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.
But it also marked the start of a fraught three-stage process yet to be fully hashed out, with many in Israel and Gaza fearful that it could fall apart before reaching a so-called “day after,” leaving scores still in captivity and plunging the Strip back into devastating conflict.
Initial delays
Several tense hours preceded the start of the ceasefire, with Hamas twice missing deadlines to hand over the list of hostages to be freed and Israel refusing to halt its fire until the terror group produced the names, raising concerns of the deal suffering a wrench in the works before even coming into effect.
Under the ceasefire-hostage release agreement signed in Doha early Friday and ratified by Israel early Saturday, Hamas is required to provide the names of the hostages at least 24 hours ahead of their release — which was expected to be on Sunday at around 4:30 p.m.
But 4 p.m. on Saturday came and went, and by Sunday morning, the terror group still had not confirmed which three of the 97 hostages were slated for release later in the day. It finally sent the three names at around 10 a.m.

Paramedics and ambulances wait on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip on January 18, 2025, to enter into Gaza once the ceasefire-hostage release deal comes into effect. (Photo by AFP)
With the ceasefire set to go into effect at 8:30 a.m., Netanyahu had warned Saturday night that Israel would continue fighting until the list was received.
“Israel will not tolerate violations of the agreement,” a statement released by his office added. “The sole responsibility lies with Hamas.”
Israeli warplanes continued to pound the Strip Sunday morning, killing at least eight people, according to Hamas-controlled health authorities. The toll could not be confirmed and it was not known if the eight were combatants or civilians.
“The IDF is continuing to strike now in Gaza, as long as Hamas is not fulfilling its obligations to the deal,” Israel Defense Forces spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said just as the ceasefire had been slated to begin

Demonstrators protest for the release of hostages held in the Gaza Strip, outside the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv, January 18, 2025. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90
A source from within Hamas claimed to the Ynet news site on Sunday morning that the delay in handing over the names was purely due to “technical reasons,” adding that the list had to be approved by Hamas leader Muhammad Sinwar.
According to the source, Hamas operatives communicate “physically via emissaries and it takes time to agree on the names and the location of the hostages when IDF planes are still above them.”
Israel had anticipated the moments before the ceasefire could be marred by barrages of Hamas rockets into Israel, as has happened in the past. There were no reports of rocket fire, though sirens went off twice in communities near Gaza due to false alarms, the IDF said.
How releases set to unfold
Following the release of the names, Gal Hirsch, the government’s point person on the return of the hostages, spoke with the families of the three female hostages expected to be returned Sunday, the PMO said.
Once freed, the former hostages will be brought to one of three complexes set up by the IDF near the Gaza border, at Re’im Base, the Kerem Shalom Crossing and the Erez Crossing, depending on the location of their release.
Upon arrival, the hostages will meet with IDF representatives, doctors, psychologists, and mental health officers, and receive initial treatment.
From there, they will be escorted by the IDF to hospitals, where they will meet their families.
The IDF estimates that it will be some two hours from the moment the Red Cross hands over the hostages to troops in Gaza, and until the moment they head from the army facilities to a hospital.
Three women civilians
Gonen was kidnapped from the Nova music festival as she tried to escape the terrorist onslaught. She told her mother she had been shot before losing contact. “It’s official, Romi is on the list. Good luck to all of us,” Gonen’s sister Shahaf Gonen posted on social media shortly after the list was released.
Damari was taken hostage on October 7 by Hamas terrorists who attacked Kibbutz Kfar Aza, killing, assaulting and abducting dozens to Gaza. She is a British-Israeli dual citizen whose last message was around 10 a.m. on October 7, when she wrote that terrorists were in her neighborhood and shooting around her apartment.
Like Damari, Steinbrecher, a veterinary nurse, was kidnapped from Kfar Aza.
Also as part of its preparations ahead of the ceasefire, the IDF on Saturday declared the Nitzana Crossing area on the Egypt-Israel border a closed military zone and extended closed military zones in the Yad Mordechai and Kerem Shalom area until at least January 24.
More aid for Gaza
In the hours leading up to the start of the deal, Hamas-affiliated media reported that Israeli troops were withdrawing from Gaza’s Rafah, which shares a border crossing with Egypt, in anticipation of the start of the ceasefire.
Troops were said to be regrouping along the Philadelphi Corridor on the Gaza-Egypt border.
There was no comment from the IDF on the reports.
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SOURCE: www.timesofisrael.com
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