By Bloomberg

Copyright scmp

Israel expects all hostages held in Gaza to be freed early on Monday, a spokeswoman for the prime minister’s office said, adding that all surviving captives are to be released simultaneously.
“The release of our hostages will begin early Monday morning. We are expecting all 20 of our living hostages to be released together at one time to the Red Cross and transported among six to eight vehicles,” Shosh Bedrosian told journalists on Sunday.
Also on Monday, US President Donald Trump is due to visit Israel to meet hostage families and address parliament.
Vice President JD Vance on Sunday said Trump was also likely to meet with newly freed hostages.
He then heads to Egypt, where he and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi will lead a summit in the Red Sea town of Sharm el-Sheikh with leaders from over 20 countries, discussing peace in Gaza and the broader Middle East.
Who are the remaining hostages?
Two young men, Evyatar David and Guy Gilboa-Dalal, went together to an all-night desert music festival near the Gaza border over two years ago.
As dawn broke on October 7, 2023, thousands of rockets flew in from Gaza as armed invaders gunned down 400 of their fellow party-goers.
David and Dalal were among the first to be abducted to Gaza.
Over the summer, Hamas released a video of David, emaciated and desperate, digging his own grave in a Gaza tunnel. The images rattled many people, including US President Donald Trump.

On Monday, the two friends, now 24, are due to be released along with 18 other hostages believed to be alive, all of them men.
For many Israelis, the homecoming of the last 48 hostages from Gaza will mark one of the most emotional moments of the two-year war.
Along with relief over the safe return of hostages who are still alive, there is a sense of closure over the rest.
And not just among family and close friends. A large portion of the Israeli public – 82 per cent, according to a poll by local broadcaster Channel 13 — are supportive of Trump’s 20-point plan to finally end the war.
Only now can Israeli society start healing from the atrocities committed by Hamas in October 2023 and the brutal war that followed, according to many people who backed the “Bring them home. Now.” campaign.

The men set to return are the last of roughly 250 abducted Israelis and foreigners thought to be alive. Two earlier ceasefire deals prioritised the release of children, women, the elderly and the wounded.
Fateful festival
Eleven of those who remain were taken from the Nova music festival. The site had the largest number of casualties among several massacres targeting Israelis in villages and military outposts near the Gaza Strip, in which a total of about 1,200 people were killed.
Rom Barslavski, 21, worked as a security guard at the festival.
He spent several hours helping to evacuate injured party-goers and bodies from the site while under fire, and was eventually captured and taken to Gaza.
Like David, he was filmed over the summer by his captors from the Islamic Jihad, looking emaciated and frail. Medical experts estimated Barslavski had lost as much as 50 per cent of his body weight and was in immediate danger of his life.
David Lammy, then the UK foreign secretary, condemned the footage as “sickening”. French President Emmanuel Macron, who has been advocating for the recognition of a Palestinian State, said the videos portrayed Hamas’ “abject cruelty”.

Avinatan Or, 32, was abducted along with his partner Noa Argamani, who was released from captivity last year. A photo of the couple being torn apart before they were taken to Gaza became an iconic image of the day’s horrors.
Also taken from the music festival and thought to have survived are Alon Ohel, 24, a gifted pianist who has lost the vision in his right eye; Bar Abraham Kupershtein, 23; Yosef-Chaim Ohana, 25; Eitan Abraham Mor, 25; Segev Kalfon, 27; Elkana Bohbot, 36, husband to Rivka and father to a five-year-old son; and Maxim Herkin, 37, father to a 3.5-year-old daughter.
Kibbutz Nir Oz was one of the hardest hit communities on October 7. Of 76 hostages taken, the last four survivors are now expected to come home.
Matan Zangauker, 25, was taken along with his partner, Ilana Gritzewsky, who was held separately and released in November 2023.

It was, however, his mother, Einav Zangauker – a divorced single parent from the Israeli town of Ofakim – who has become a household name in Israel over the past two years.
Leading the battle for his release, she locked herself in a cage over Tel Aviv’s main road and became the face of a public campaign, issuing weekly statements and appearing multiple times in the Israeli parliament.
A former Benjamin Netanyahu supporter, Zangauker said during the ordeal that the Israeli prime minister “stabbed me in the back twice: on October 7, when my son was kidnapped, and since then to this day”.
David and Ariel Cunio are brothers who were separately taken from their homes during the Hamas attacks.
David, 35, was abducted with his wife Sharon and their three-year-old twin daughters Emma and Yuli after he fought off Hamas militants trying to break into the family’s safe room for five hours.
Sharon Cunio and the twins were released in late 2023. She has since testified that overwhelming concern for her husband has blocked any effort at rehabilitation until he comes home.
Twin captives
Ariel Cunio, 28, was kidnapped with his partner Arbel Yehud, the last living woman to be released from captivity earlier this year.
Eitan Horn, 38, was kidnapped while visiting his older brother, Iair, in Nir-Oz. They were held together in captivity until Iair’s release earlier this year. He was last documented tightly hugging his brother before they were separated.

Twins Gali and Ziv Berman, 28, were taken from Kfar Aza. Ziv was kidnapped from his home and Gali from the home of captive survivor Emily Damari, whom he went to keep company and support on the morning of October 7.
The final living civilian hostage set to come home to Nahal Oz will be Omri Miran, 48. On the morning of the attacks he was abducted as his wife, Lishay Miran Lavi, and two young daughters watched helplessly.
Also to be released are two IDF soldiers: Matan Angrest, 22, who was taken from a military outpost while wounded and unconscious, and Nimrod Cohen, 20. Both were the only survivors of their four-member tank crews.
A lack of clarity surrounds the fate of two more men: Tamir Nimrodi, a 20-year-old IDF soldier, and Bipin Joshi, a Nepalese farmhand taken from kibbutz Alumim.
Killed in captivity
Six hostages were killed while in captivity: Inbar Hayman, 27, taken from the Nova festival and the last female captive to remain in Gaza, and five men: Sahar Baruch, 24, Guy Illouz, 26, Arie Zalmanowicz, 85, Amiram Cooper, 85, and Yossi Sharabi, 53.
Sharabi is the brother of captive survivor Eli Sharabi, released earlier this year, who has since been a vocal advocate for the release of those left behind.
Nineteen more people – among them citizens of Thailand and Tanzania – were killed on October 7 and their bodies taken by Hamas.
They include Asaf Hamami, an Israeli colonel who served as the commander of the Southern Brigade in the Gaza Strip and was one of the top commanders to die on the day.
Hamas has said it may not be able to recover all bodies immediately, and there is no clarity on how many of them will be returned right away.
Also expected to be handed over to Israel is the body of Hadar Goldin, a lieutenant in the Givati Brigade of the IDF who was killed and kidnapped in Gaza during Operation Protective Edge in 2014.
More than 67,000 Gazans have been killed in the war triggered by the October 7 attacks, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilian and combatant casualties. Some 450 Israeli troops have died in combat in Gaza.
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse, Associated Press