there is now a date and time certain of when the israeli hostage deal should be set into motion. israel and hamas, hours from now, agrees to hit pause in order to get hostages out. we will speak to one of the families now holding their collective breath while waiting for word on their loved ones. >> top u.s. officials have been working for weeks to secure this truce as ten americans remain unaccounted for. president biden is calling the deal a testament to tireless diplomacy. storms are hitting major travel hubs along the east coast today. this morning, we see long lines at airports as thanksgiving travel is kicking into high gear. what it means for you and this thanksgiving holiday. i'm kate bolduan. this is "cnn news central." 18 hours from now, a truce between israel and hamas is expected to begin. with that truce, a pause in fighting and a significant number of hostages who have now been held in gaza for nearly 50 days are expected to be released. it marks the first major deescalation, if you want to call it, in this war since the hamas terror attacks started on october 7. here is more on this deal. hamas will release 50 women and children held captive in gaza. in return, hamas says 150 palestinian prisoners currently in israeli jails will be released. with this, fighting will pause for four days. with the pause, hundreds more aid trucks with food, medical supplies and fuel will head into gaza. >> right now, we don't know which hostages will be freed. president biden says it should bring home americans. before the truce begins tomorrow morning, the idf says it's continuing to target hamas infrastructure. moments ago, this was the scene over northern gaza. you see the smoke plumes there. we have team coverage standing by in israel. katelyn collins leads us off. what an important morning coming where you are over the next 18 hours. >> reporter: yeah. we are counting down the hours until this is slated to begin. what we are hearing now -- this is preliminary information, of course. it remains to be seen if it shifts or changes or slides over the next few hours. 10:00 a.m. local is when this is set to begin. that's 3:00 a.m. eastern. what we are hearing is going to happen is that is when the hostages will start being released. that's when the fighting is slated to stop. right now, it has not stopped. we are told it has continued. everyone is looking ahead until 10:00 a.m. tomorrow. the question from there is logistically, what does this look like as these hostages do start being released? what we heard is ten hostages per day. it is expected to go over four to five days is what has been agreed to so far. what i have been told by a senior israeli official is that the time for the facilitation of the release of the hostages is slated to go from 10:00 a.m. local to 4:00 p.m. local. you can see it's 4:00 p.m. local here behind me. the sun is starting to set. that's when it gets dark here. that's a question of whether or not that's a factor into the time window that they have provided of when the hostages could be released. a big question is which hostages are going to be released. we have heard from families here on the ground and they have been telling clarissa ward they have not heard anything from the government. some of them said they have been learning about this deal from the media. the other thing i heard from israeli officials is that this pause is potentially prepared to go on for ten days. that's an option that we have heard. there's deep skepticism from israeli officials it would go on that long. what benjamin netanyahu said for every additional ten hostages released outside of the initial group of 50, there would be another day in the pause in the fighting. that remains to be seen of what exactly that looks like. you still see fighting continue here. we have seen rocket fire happening in gaza throughout the day. you can see the smoke and images that we have. we are tracking all of this. we are learning about another israeli believed to have been hostage but we have learned has actually been found killed. what are we learning about that? >> we don't have too many details at this point. the idf confirmed one of those presumed to be a hostage since october 7 has been confirmed dead. she joins the names of two others the idf confirmed were found dead inside of gaza. a 65-year-old grandmother and a 19-year-old corporal. this would be the third -- first presumed hostage who was confirmed dead by the idf. waiting for more details in terms of how they came about this information and whether this was inside of gaza and if so, if her body has been recovered. these are critical and very difficult moments for the families who are waiting for news of their loved ones to find out if they are on the first batch of 50. this is why many have said even now, as they know a hostage release deal has been put into place, there are still very anxious, nervous and worried moments about whether it mean theirs loved ones are coming out or whether it's more waiting and what happens from here. as you pointed out, that hostage deal, the pause in fighting set to take place at 10:00 a.m. tomorrow. not a surprise we are still seeing fighting. we have seen multiple previous rounds of fighting that the continued fighting goes up until the pause goes into affect. even if there's rocket launches or israeli strikes until 9:50, the critical moment is 10:00 tomorrow morning we are watching. fighting before that does not mean it's falling apart. >> reporter: from there, once that begins -- we are waiting to see if 10:00 a.m. is the hard and fast time. there will be no hostilities, no fighting whatsoever as this facilitation of the release of the hostages is happening. is that right? >> correct. almost bizarre to think there will be thousands of israeli troops in gaza who take up defensive positions. we have been into gaza and gotten the sense of the amount of forces there. that's not only the fighting forces but the logistics to support the forces in gaza. they will take up defensive positions and wait for the pause in the fighting to end. initially scheduled for four days. if hamas keeps releasing hostages, the pause could be longer. the israeli troops will wait there. over the course of the past weeks now, israel has had surveillance drones over gaza as a way of monitoring not only their own troops but threats. those will stop flying over northern gaza for six-hour periods. that will essentially rob israel of one of its critical assets during a pause in the fighting. that's what they agreed to to secure the release of israeli hostages. of course, it's a question of when does the pause in fighting end? what does that look like? benjamin netanyahu said the war very much continues as israel tries to continue destroying hamas. >> reporter: thank you. i will say, i spoke to the former israeli prime minister. he was saying that he kind of uses -- he wasn't critical at all. he made sure he was not going to criticize israel. he viewed this pause as kind of allowing hamas time to regroup. he compared it to being in a fight with your opponent and once you knocked them down giving them the time to get back up. some concerns here in israel among former officials about what that pause could allow, what it could mean for hamas when it comess to tactically speaking. >> on balance with the benefit of getting hostages out adding to the complicated nature of what is complicated when you are trying to reach an agreement with a terrorist organization. we will get back to you. thank you for being there. joining us to talk about what she's mentioning here is chris o'leary, former director of hostage recovery for the u.s. government. it's good to see you. take the deal and agreement first on its face and the details we are learning of it. coming from your background, what do you think of this agreement, this deal? >> it's a success. people shouldn't be high fiving each other quite yet. it's 50 hostages that are not released yesterday. as you highlighted, your partner in this negotiation is terrorist organization that massacred israeli citizens a month and a half ago. hamas is using this for tactical delay on their part. they are not doing this for humanitarian reasons, for any other reason. this is an asymmetric war. this gives them leverage to drag things out. hopefully for their point, a road to international and domestic support. >> do you think hamas benefits the most from this deal? i say that with -- it's hard to -- you are balancing the life of children and other hostages who are getting out. in terms of tactically, do you see that hamas benefits greatly? >> absolutely. terrorist organizations take hostages because it gives them power and leverage. israel is a superior force in so many ways. this gives them the opportunity to drag things out and hopefully survive. the first 50, this is almost an ominous sign. it's great for those -- >> ominous? tell me. >> it's great for the victims being released. every life matters. for their families. but for the idf soldiers, this is indicative of how difficult it's going to be to get them out. if it took this long to get 50 women and children out, only imagine how difficult it's going to be to release uniformed idf soldiers. it could take years. >> years? a successful agreement, pause, truce, hostage release does not necessarily beget it's going to get easier from here? >> it's not. that's why israel likely -- i'm confident -- has a parallel line of effort to continue to eliminate the network, find where the captors are, find out who has been holding hostages, where their possible locations are and seek military options in the future for hostage recovery. >> one thing that hamas has said in terms of the negotiations is they don't know exactly where all the hostages are being held. we know there are various groups linked with hamas that are criminal gangs in gaza that are holding some of the hostages. what does that mean for any effort, if you are talking about a hostage rescue operation versus one of the agreements? >> it would be ideal if all the hostages were together and if it was in a location that israel could fully understand the pattern of life of the guards, what the defenses were. in hostage rescue you want to know the details of the structure of the building, which way the doors open, inward or outward. you rehearse that before you do it. hostage rescue is like no other counterterrorism raid. >> maybe information you could get from the hostages who are released. complicated. some are babies. >> that will happen. the first thing that will happen -- i have worked with israel. it's standard that the u.s. has and israel has as well. their medical condition will be addressed first. then the psychological condition will be addressed. once they are ready, they will be debriefed. children will be debriefed as well. every little detail will matter and help shape up the intelligence picture. they will have victim services, people with the agents doing the interviews. >> in all of this, families of 240 plus hostages all collectively holding their breath to see who is released and what this all means and how they are when they get out. chris, it's good to have you here. >> good to be here. coming up, as families wait to hear if their loved ones will be among the 50 hostages released tomorrow, we will speak to a woman whose three family members, including a 12-year-old boy and his 16-year-old sister, were kidnapped by hamas on october 7. breaking overnight, the ousted ceo of openai is back just days after being fired by the company's board. the wild turn of events that put him back in charge. it's a potentially record breaking day for holiday travel. severe storms across the u.s. could make that complicated. what to look out foror next. this morning, we are learning about how the deal to secure the release of 50 of the hostages being held by hamas right now came together. it involved weeks of negotiations between israel, the u.s., qatar, hamas. the white house saying president biden has been personally engaged in the negotiation process as well. the effort began days after the october 7th terror attacks by hamas. mj, you got some interesting info on how involved president biden and top administration officials were in getting to this point. >> we have a clearer picture now of the weeks and weeks of intensive negotiations that went on behind the scenes that really got us to this point. what we have learned is that very soon after october 7, basically a top secret channel of communication was established between a small group of white house officials and israeli and qatari officials so they could focus on the hostage negotiations and negotiate with hamas. last month, you saw the two american citizens that were released. when that was successfully executed, we are told it sent a signal to u.s. officials that there was at least a proven and effective way of getting some of the hostages out. that's when they began and set out to try to get a larger group of hostages out. as our reporting has shown, they faced an incredible amount of just challenges and complications in trying to negotiate with hamas. we learned, for example, that for weeks and weeks, hamas simply refused to offer any identifying information about the hostages, their age, gender, nationality. that ended up becoming a major sticking point. so much so, at one point they felt they were close to a deal and u.s. and israeli officials discussed whether israel should delay its ground operations, but they decided not to do that because even at that point, they didn't have any identifying information about the hostages. of course, israel continued on with its ground invasion on october 27th. then just in recent days, we are told, hamas actually went dark for a little bit. they were just completely unresponsive to overtures. when they finally resurfaced, they expressed, i guess, their displeasure about the israeli raid into al-shifa hospital. talks did resume. this just goes to show you how intensive and touch and go these talks have been. this is not including, of course, the many, many conversations that took place behind closed doors between president biden, but also some of this other top officials, including national security advisor jake sullivan, brett mcgurk, cia director bill burns intimately involved. some of the phone calls, we are told were so sensitive at the time that we didn't get a readout of the calls in real time. i think we are beginning to see a better picture of why all along, all throughout this process, officials have been so emphatic that they really just were not even willing to get their hopes up because they did think that things could break down at any moment. >> it gives you the sense of how many peoples were involved, even on the u.s. side, before you get to the multiple countries here. thank you so much. so many families are holding their collective breath right now to see if their loved ones are among those who will be released, especially families of the youngest victims here, the 30 plus children believed kidnapped and held hostage by hamas. among them is a 3-year-old, the youngest american hostage. her great aunt and cousin spoke to cnn this morning. >> we talk about it. it's easy to understand what a 3-year-old -- they are little. what she has been enduring and the life. there's 230 more that are all different ages. there's a 9-month-old child. >> women and children in their 80s. we need them back with their family after everything we have gone through. >> there are so many other children being held hostage as well, including -- look at these faces on your screen. a 12-year-old and his sister who is 16 and their father are being held by hamas in gaza right now. they are family of abbey and she joins us from israel. thank you for being here. what does -- >> thank you for having me. >> what does this moment feel like for you? hope, fear, something in between? >> all of it. it's really complex. as liz and noah were saying in the segment, we want everyone home. in my family, two of them that would be considered in this deal. i think that the thing we all agree on is that children are not part of war. if there's a deal where they can bring the babies and the children home, then it gives us hope. >> your family is dealing with so much. two of your family members were murdered. we have sadly reported on their bodies being found previously. now we have three of your family members kidnapped by hamas. i heard you talk about the situation that your family has found itself in is everyone's greatest nightmare. how has this evolved over the last seven weeks since the terror attack? >> i think there's the kind of personal trauma, but there's also the communal and national trauma. i don't know one person that this hasn't touched, whether it's my baby-sitter who survived, whether it's one of my friends who was shot in gaza last week and is recovering right now. it turned our lives upside down. i barely work. this is a full-time, 24/7 job where you are not eating, you are not sleeping. this is what you think about if your eyes close at night and when you wake up in the morning. it's all consuming. it's something that we are not processing. we're just living through until every one of the hostages are home and our soldiers are safe. >> we are talking in terms of your family, a 12-year-old boy and a 16-year-old girl. the trauma here is something that none of us can imagine. have you considered -- first and foremost, what you want to say, what you will do if and when you see them and they are released, hopefully, in the first group? >> i think the trauma will be immense. the first thing that i can hope for them after the medical attention is just to be with their mother. it's what i would want if this was my son who is 12. i would want him in my arms. i would want to know he is safe. that's what i wish for my cousin. beyond that, one day down the road, my deep belief is that our children will play together and there will be lightness and that this will be something that we experience and not something we continue to experience. i think they just need the feeling of safety and security right now. >> have you considered what it will be like and feel like if one of them but not all of them in terms of your family is released? >> yeah. i think we are dealing with a terror organization and i think that is a great possibility. that would bring us even more terror that one of them comes out instead of two or three of them. at the same time, i'm holding in my heart the families whose hostages are not children and know they will most likely not be on this list. you asked me in the beginning how i feel. my heart is heavy and it's hopeful. i think every single person that gets released is a reason for us to rejoice. i truly hope my family is among them. but i will be happy for every person that gets to see one of their family members. >> this agreement -- you talked about how complex this thing is. the agreement, i'm sure, brings up complex feelings as well. the idea that 150 palestinian prisoners held in israel will be released as part of this. if it means an opportunity for hamas, this terrorist organization, to be given time to regroup and reset in the pause, how do you feel about that possibility? >> i feel torn about it, honestly. our hostages are innocent civilians. to know we have to trade them for people that have endangered israelis is hard to know that hamas has time to regroup knowing that they want to recommit october 7 over and over again and knowing our soldiers, many of whom are my friends and my neighbors, would be put even more in harm's way, it's extremely complex. but i believe that it is the government of israel's first responsibility to protect its citizens. that didn't happen on october 7. they need to bring them