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00:00The Israeli government has just acknowledged receiving the list of names of hostages to
00:04be released tomorrow by Hamas.
00:06As expected, these are three adult men.
00:09One is the Franco-Israeli, Ofer Calderon, that the French government has been working
00:15pretty hard to release.
00:17The other is Keith Siegel, an Israeli-American.
00:20Similarly, Steve Witkoff, who we were just talking about, has made big efforts to ensure
00:25that one of the two Americans still left in Gaza would be released this weekend.
00:31And finally, the third man is Yarden Bibas, a 36-year-old from the kibbutz of Niroz, who's
00:37become a kind of cause célèbre, because he was taken by Hamas on October 7.
00:44And separately from him, his wife Shiri and his two small children, Kfir and Ariel, became
00:51very famous because of the images of their kidnapping, with his wife holding the two
00:56babies in her arms with their red heads and sobbing.
01:01The Israeli government has requested from Hamas information about the condition of Shiri,
01:07Ariel, and Kfir Bibas, but none has been forthcoming thus far.
01:12So all we know is that he's expected to emerge tomorrow by himself without the rest of his
01:17family.
01:18And Israel will continue to follow that swap tomorrow on French 24.
01:22Some developments today in Rafah, Noga, what can you tell us?
01:27Well, quite a bit.
01:28So the ceasefire agreement signed a few weeks ago stipulated that the Rafah border crossing,
01:34which is the crossing between Gaza and Egypt, would be open next week.
01:39It has already been open today, so that's a bit of a surprise.
01:43Israel agreed to that.
01:44And that means that Israel withdrew its forces.
01:46So we are unclear at this point on who is staffing the Gazan side of this Egypt-Gaza
01:53crossing.
01:54In other words, the Egyptian authorities obviously are on their side of the border.
01:59And we don't know, is it Hamas?
02:01Is it members of the Palestinian Authority, the way the international community has requested
02:07but Israel has rejected?
02:09It's the weekend here.
02:11In Israel, government authorities aren't really responding to questions.
02:14And that is a big one, especially for Prime Minister Netanyahu, who has promised his base
02:22for months that neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority, which he refers to as equal terrorists,
02:28that neither one will be in charge of such a crucial place.
02:32So that is a big question that we're going to be following up on in the next few days.
02:37In addition, responding to those comments by President Trump that you just cited, saying
02:43he was going to clear out Gaza, there is a significant protest of people, some of
02:49them Gazans, on the Egyptian side of that border crossing.
02:53So having opened it, Egypt is giving the United States a signal here that it is allowing people
03:00to protest against the U.S. president under the guise of just a popular spontaneous protest.
03:06But by opening that border, they have allowed this to take place.
03:11Obviously, we don't know what President Trump's ultimate intentions are.
03:15But at this point, there's absolutely zero Arab partners for his idea of emptying out Gaza.