-- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com i'm kaitlan collins live in tel aviv, israel. this is a special edition of "the source" tonight because in just three hours from now, we expect to see the most significant break in the intense fighting that has been happening between israel and hamas in 47 days. a temporary pause is slated to begin at midnight eastern, 7:00 a.m. local here, following weeks of pain staking negotiations that have happened behind the scenes and a final burst of bombs flying across the border tonight. this carefully brokered deal that is happening, this agreement between israel and hamas is supposed to mean that at least 50 hostages, women and children, we are told, will be able to go home for the first time since the october 7th attacks. israel, in exchange has promised to free 150 palestinian prisoners, women and minors, who have been imprisoned in jails here in israel. there's another critical piece of this deal as well. that is humanitarian aid for gaza. we're told that some 200 trucks carrying relief supplies and four fuel trucks are lining up at the rafah crossing, preparing to go into gaza, where they are so desperately needed. in the hours leading up to this very temporary truce, we are told, we are still watching signs this war is very hot, as israel defense forces have claimed they have taken a senior hamas commander off the battlefield. they say there's been about 100 of those in total they have killed, after what they say is a targeted strike that has happened in gaza tonight. more on what is happening and what the next few hours could look like, as we closely monitor this. matthew chance is here live with me in tel aviv. and what we know, as the broad outlines of this deal -- and really we'll see what happens once it starts to play out -- is this technically starts at midnight eastern. we're not going to see hostages coming across right then. >> that's not going to happen until at least 4:00 local time, so some hours afterward, israelis believe or expect the first hostages to start coming out. and that's because it's logistically very complicated. and of course hamas and the other palestinian militant groups may be holding israelis and other hostages inside gaza, got to assemble them in the right place. they're going to be transferred across the border from gaza into egypt through rafah border crossing, checked by the international red cross, and handed over into israeli hands. there's all sorts of steps, moving parts in that operation, that could be delayed and even derail this thing as well. one point we want to make is that the israelis say they won't release any palestinian prisoners from israeli jails until they've got the 13 israeli citizens in their hands. they're not going to start releasing palestinian prisoners until they know those israelis are safe. i think that's an indication of how little trust the israelis have at the moment that this is going to go without any problems. >> and just recently they finally found out what those 13 names were going to look like. we've talked about hamas and how they can use this 96-hour period of no fighting in gaza to rebuild. we heard from the idf spokesperson saying their troops will be moving around as well. how could israel use this period to prepare and replenish what's happening what they're doing in gaza? >> israel have been very reluctant to undertake this pause. they've described it as painful because they are concerned hamas will use it as an opportunity to regroup, to put itself in a more defensive position. i expect there are all sorts of ways that the israeli military, which is very technologically capable -- it's got powerful allies like united states as well, with very powerful observation capabilities from satellites and things like that. perhaps they will use this as an opportunity to try and gather more intelligence on where the hostages may be held. even at the end of this process, if 50 -- we're talking about at least 50 people probably coming out, women and children. that's the terms of the deal at the moment. it could be more than that. but even if 50 come out, there are still going to be 190 left there. and israelis have made it quite clear they want everybody out. if they can't do it through negotiation, they're going to try to do it through other means. >> matthew chance, thank you. of course we're watching all this closely, there's still so much we don't know. this is an unprecedented deal we are about to see play out. for more perspective on what it could look like, i want to speak to the former israeli ambassador to the united states, michael oren, who is also the ambassador in residence at the atlantic council. of course great perspective here. ambassador, when you look at this and what we are about to see in these next few hours, what are you watching for? >> i'm -- good evening, kaitlan. good to be with you. i'm watching for whether hamas will again move the football. hamas is a terrorist organization. it does not negotiate in good faith. and hamas not only engaging in physical terror, it engages in emotional terror. even releasing these hostages in this traunch, this group of 50, is going to drive deep emotional wedges in israeli society, which is what hamas wants to do. beside the fact the external strategic ramifications of this -- and it's been mentioned by several of your commentators already -- that restarting the war after the hiatus of five days will not be simple for the state of israel. it will be difficult. and it's going to increase the pressure of all these other families whose loved ones weren't released. so, hamas is very much playing a interesting and moving the football type of strategy, which we've known for many times before, hamas has broken every ceasefire it's ever agreed to, including the ceasefire that existed on october 7th. there was a ceasefire too right before that. so, we have to keep that in mind. we watch for that. i think there's one point, though, that hasn't been made strongly enough. let me stress it. that is that this hostage exchange is happening because of the pressure israel put on hamas. it would not have been possible before that without the israeli ground incursion into gaza, in the sense that hamas is under a very very difficult situation. the way hamas is now going to exploit those six hours when israel won't have drone eyes on the ground, hamas will probably move fighters from the north into the south and prepare for the next stage of the battle. >> what do you think it says about hamas' current state of operations, that they did agree to this deal? obviously having the hostages is what has given them leverage here. >> the leverage cuts two ways. israel's ground forces also has the leverage on hamas. keep in mind, these fighters aren't really coming out of their tunnels. they come out occasionally, fire an rpg or fire an antitank rocket, then they go away. it's not easy to be underground six weeks. and they want to use this time to rearm, to reorganize, to reposition many of their fighters. and let's be clear about this. this hostage exchange, we are going to gain the lives of these hostages, but it's going to cost us in terms of the live of our soldiers. we'll have to go into a battlefield at the end of five days, which has far more booby traps in it and will eventually have to go into the south, which is complicated because of the great number of palestinians that have been moved to the south. i stress there's going to be international pressure and domestic pressure to extend the ceasefire, which from israel's perspective means close to death because it means hamas gets away with mass murder and it means that israel can't restore its internal security. we have 250,000 internal refugees, sbrees who moved away from the border, who won't be able to go back to the border if hamas does what it pledges to do, which is rearm and launch strikes against israel. it's an extremely delicate situation, and i would expect hamas to continue to negotiate in bad faith and be prepared for that. >> obviously the families here are grateful regardless of what's happening that their loved ones will be coming home. they know it's not all of them, but at least 50 of them have hopes tonight that it could be their loved ones. that's at the center of this. the way you're talking about this tactically speaking on the battl battlefield, who benefits from this deal more? hamas or israel? >> i don't think the word "benefit" really fits here. israel has to counterbalance two fundamental interest. one is restoring the security of the state. and the other is keeping its promise to the people of israel, that no matter where they are, if they fall prisoner, god forbid, israel will do anything to get them back. remember the raid in 1976, israel was willing to do anything, go more than the last mile to rescue hostages. so, trying to counterbalance these two from israeli perspectives sacred objectives of the state. so, we want to get the hostages back, but we also need to restore security, including deterrence power, because the impression could be given to our enemies in the region, typically iranians, that you can strike with impunity. when israel goes to defend itself, there will be a ceasefire slapped on israel and tie its hands. that's extreme strategic danger. i would go so far as to say it's an existential danger. let's be very clear about this. israel cannot negotiate the end of all the hostages. as precious as these hostages are coming home to their families, hamas will hold onto them because if hamas gives up the last hostage, israel can flood the tunnel system with seawater, and it would eliminate hamas. chances are maybe they'll hold on to a few hostages as a get out of gaza free card and maybe exchange their retreat from gaza on some boat, such as the plo did from beirut in 1982, in exchange for the last hostages. it would be a good youtcome. that would be beneficial. >> they've obviously completely used them as leverage. ambassador, before i let you go, i just want to ask you on a different but still related note, it's thanksgiving in the united states. a lot of people have been spending the day with their families. they may be sitting around a table right now listening to this conversation. you recently wrote an op-ed talking about how anti-semitism is coming up and what that conversation looks like this year and how you say it's changed a lot but not really that much when you look at the conversation. i wonder what you think those conversations should look like at thanksgiving tables tonight. >> excellent question. just before i came on the show, i learned the house of my good friend, mike, in los angeles, was attacked by hamas supporters. he and his wife were inside the house. and i'm waiting for word on their condition. so, this is not just a matter of discomfort. it's a matter of physical fear of being attacked. and that was the conversation around thanksgiving tables. now, if you want to go back a few years ago and there would be a conversation about anti-semitism, there would be a big division among americans, how do you define anti-semitism? not criticizing israel, but saying israel should be wiped off the map, from the river to the sea, palestine should be free. that debate is over. everyone understands that. when pro-hamas demonstrators say, gas the jews, or bring back auschwitz, it's not a question that anti-zionism is a form of anti-semitism. in the past there was a big question about how to defend the jewish community, whether you could sit down and talk. for people chanting to throw the jews back to auschwitz or gas them, i don't think you're going to have much of an educational moment with them. they have to be resisted. any names you can, surely peaceful names, but that the american jewish community has to defend itself, spend some time on american campuses. i'm with columbia students. they're living in fear. i couldn't have imagined a moment like this. but they have to fight back. they understand that. and the sense of really sort of being besieged. it's frightening, i must tell you honestly. >> and it's a lot of conversation, students returning back after the break will be having. ambassador michael oren, as always, thank you for your time. >> have a good holiday. thank you. up next, we'll also speak live with a former fbi agent who specialized on working on these kinds of hostage cases overseas. his view, why he believes the risk of the mistake here is incredibly high. also an adviser to the 2020 abraham accords will join me. why he believes peace on all sides is not as farfetched as you might think. this is cnn's special live coverage. in just a few hours from now, the first hostages being held by hamas could be on their way home. so, what will that transfer process actually look like? obviously it's going to be quite complicated. but where do these women and children who are expected to be the first ones out of gaza, out of hamas' captivity, where do they go? joining me now is the former fbi agent, robert demeco, who has worked on hostage cases overseas in his career. rob, let's just start with how much of a test do you think that the first day here is going to be for future swaps? >> oh, it's huge. as this -- i call this a moment of trust. you don't have to have trust on either side of it. but during the actual exchange, you have to trust each other quite a bit. it's complex. there's so many things that could go wrong. even without any ill effect on either side, if you have a faction not wanting to happen. we tried to do hostage exchanges and even couldn't find them with the helicopter and trying to narrow it down before weather came in. but this one's going to take a lot of trust to move that many people through an area that's, you know, a part of war. hamas isn't going to want them to be tracked where they came from. i'm sure they'll come to a central point where they've gathered them and move them to a point agreed on. same thing with the israeli prisoners that are going to be coming out. it is a tremendous task, and the first one is going to be extremely difficult. a lot of heightened tension on either side. it will go down a bit with each one. but even as small as air between them can have that spin out of control as far as losing trust. >> how much does it hurt it that it's not a direct line of communication between israel and hamas? i mean, this is all being mediated through the qataris. >> so, i've done a couple of these. one actually, i ended up having -- i was going through a senior qatari that we were moving military folks to recover a prisoner held by the taliban. and it got so complicated that the qatari had to flip his cell phone so i was talking straight to the commander because we couldn't find him. we had to lower the predator to look for them, and they thought we were going to shoot them. they had machine guns, so they goodness we had some communication to talk each other down. the second one, almost four years ago today, november 2019, we exchanged professor king and weeks, two professors kidnapped in kabul for the -- three. that was a bit different. we had to give our side up, t their three first, before they released theirs. we had to pull them back at the last second because something fell through. it didn't hurt. we did it the next day, but it was still a complex scenario. there's so many people involved to get word back and forth. but that was through the qataris too. so, again, the trust factor, qataris talking to hamas, us talking to qataris, since we've done it with them before, i think that helps a bit. >> so, what is -- if you're a hostage and you are one of the first ones who's being released, what does that reintegration period look like? obviously they're going to need medical exams. they want to be reunited with their families. these are people who have been deeply traumatized for 47 days now. what does that look like? >> so, it's -- the reintegration, we call it bringing them back in. the first thing is medical. i'm sure with this many at this one time that they're going to have something set up where they come in and there's going to be a medical team for each person. i think the first are going to be 13 people. don't know who, don't know ages and stuff. but there's going to be a medical team probably for each pe person. along with that medical team is going to be hopefully a psychologist. the fbi has a psychologist under the victims assistance folks that usually comes forward at least to a middle ground. weld usually move them to germany, where there's a whole team set up at the military base there, in order to reintegrate them. and the psychologist starts actually dictating what's allowed. we'd even have agents who are intel folks talking to them without the psychologist there because of all the stress that they're going through. we want to get information from them to help with other hostages and other things, but their physical and mental health is more important. and that psychologist that's assigned to them is the one really dictating. i've seen some prisoners -- i debriefed -- he was actually pakistani. and he had been held five years by the taliban. i debriefed him for about five hours before we sent him back, and he had me laughing. i couldn't believe how much sense of humor he remained after five years. he had a great outlook. >> wow. >> he was making jokes and really coming around. that was incredible. >> that is remarkable. i mean, your insight on this is so fascinating. and obviously we're thinking of all of these who are going to be released. robert d'amico, thank you for joining us. happy thanksgiving. >> thank you. happy thanksgiving to you too. we're learning new details not just about when the hostages are released but also on the battlefield. what is that going to look like? plus why the pope says this conflict, in his view, has gone beyond war. he is now calling it terrorism. more on thosose commentsts just ahead.d. as we lead up to this deadline of when this temporary truce is set to begin, israel has been heavily bombarding sites throughout gaza today in these hours before that. they are expected to have a full stop in the fighting once we hit that midnight eastern deadline. that is 7:00 a.m. here local. cnn's jeremy diamond has more. jeremy? >> reporter: kaitlan, hours before that pause in fighting is set to go into effect, the israeli military is continuing to pummel the gaza strip. we have been watching over the last several hours, as there have been significant explosions, bomb bombardments of key areas of northern gaza. this is the area where we watched several large explosions. we've also heard outgoing artillery fire from near our position and also machine gunfire, indicating potentially active battles between israeli forces and hamas militants. the israeli military has made very clear they intended to continue carrying out their military operations up until the time when that truce goes into effect. an israeli defense forces spokesman in fact saying it is business as usual in the hours until that expected pause in fighting goes into effect. but if everything goes according to plan, at 7:00 a.m. local time, we will see that pause in fighting. and several hours later, around 4:00 p.m. in the afternoon, is when we are expecting to see the first israeli hostages cross into israeli from the gaza strip. 13 hostages expected to be released in that first day. we don't yet know their identities. but the process effectively, they are set to be handed over to the red cross by hamas initially and then from there will be handed over to israeli forces. some of those hostages will be met by their families near the gaza border. others will meet them at the hospitals, where they're expected to undergo medical evaluations and then also be able to be reunited with their families. of c