Coordinator for Hostages and Missing Persons Brig.-Gen. (res.) Gal Hirsch is not planning on ending his role as the mission to bring back hostages from Gaza has not yet been completed, he told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.
"At the moment, I'm not talking about the end of my role, since the mission to bring back all the hostages, both living and murdered, has not yet been completed," Hirsch said.
Hirsch has headed the Hostages and Missing Persons headquarters since the October 7 massacre. He has maintained contact with hostage families, provided them with intelligence details about the hostages, including signs of life or notifications of their murder, and provided updates on developments in the negotiations.
Twenty living hostages are expected to be released within 72 hours of the deal entering effect. Additionally, Arab reports indicated that Hamas had begun collecting the remains of deceased hostages to return to Israel.
US President Donald Trump told reporters on Thursday that the hostages would come home on Monday or Tuesday.
Hostages set to come home on Monday or Tuesday
This comes after Trump announced that Israel and Hamas had agreed to the first phase of a ceasefire deal in Gaza.
The plan was signed at noon in Egypt, and will come into effect after the Israeli government ratifies it in a vote set for 6 p.m. on Thursday.
CNN reported on Wednesday that Israeli officials believe that Hamas will not be able to return all of the deceased hostages because the Palestinian terror group will be unable to retrieve or locate their bodies.
In the immediate wake of the announcement of the deal, the IDF began preparing to shift its deployment lines in the Palestinian enclave after the Post previously reported Israel had reached a full agreement on the maps detailing the military's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.