October 14, 2025 • 12 mins
On Monday, Hamas released the 20 living hostages it took two years ago, and Israel released almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees. Speaking to media on a flight to Israel that day, U.S. President Donald Trump said: "The war is over, okay. Do you understand that?" In today’s episode, we’ll walk you through the events of Monday, and explain what we know about the next steps.
Listen: How close are we to an Israel-Hamas ceasefire
Hosts: Lucy Tassell and Billi FitzSimons
Producer: Orla Maher
Want to support The Daily Aus? That's so kind! The best way to do that is to click ‘follow’ on Spotify or Apple and to leave us a five-star review. We would be so grateful.
The Daily Aus is a media company focused on delivering accessible and digestible news to young people. We are completely independent.
Want more from TDA?
Subscribe to The Daily Aus newsletter
Subscribe to The Daily Aus’ YouTube Channel
Have feedback for us?
We’re always looking for new ways to improve what we do. If you’ve got feedback, we’re all ears. Tell us here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Already and this is this is the Daily This is
the Daily OS.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Oh, now it makes sense.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Good morning, and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Wednesday,
the fifteenth of October. I'm Lucy Tassel, I'm Billiefit Simon's.
On Monday, Hamas released the twenty living hostages. It took
two years ago, and Israel released almost two thousand Palestinian
prisoners and detainees. Speaking to media on a flight to
Israel that day, US President Donald Trump said.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
This the war is over. Okay, you understand that.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
In today's episode, we'll walk you through the events of
Monday and explain what we know about the next steps.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
So, Lucy, a lot happened on Monday. We had Hamas
releasing the twenty living remaining hostages. We had Israel also
releasing almost two thousand prison and detainees. Yeah, and Trump
spoke at Israel's parliament, which is called the Kanesset. Let's
go through each of those one by one.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Yeah, So we'll start kind of in chronological order. The
first event of those was the release of the hostages,
So that happened in two batches two years ago. As
anyone listening to this podcast would know, Hamas attacked Israel,
taking two hundred and forty people hostage, including soldiers and
civilians such as people who were attending a music festival
(01:33):
near the border of Gaza, and Hamas also took others
from their homes, again also near the border of Gaza.
Many hostages, both living and dead, were released or rescued
by Israeli forces over the last two years. Those kind
of releases happened in previous pauses in hostilities, such as
in January. That meant that by Monday there were forty
(01:56):
eight still in Gaza. Twenty we have now confirmed were alive.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
So then that means that there are twenty eight who
have died whilst being held captive. What do we know
about those people?
Speaker 1 (02:08):
We know that Hamas is meant to release their remains
to the Red Cross, which has been facilitating these hostage transfers,
who will then give them to the IDF for identification.
At the time of recording, Hamas has returned four and
earlier this week, a spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netnya who said that if Hamas can't locate the remains
(02:30):
of any hostages. This spokesperson said an international body will
be set up to find their remains. But back to
Monday and to the living hostages. It started really a
little after four pm Sydney time. Hamas released seven living
hostages to the Red Cross, who picked them up in
Gaza and took them to the IDF's custody. And around
(02:55):
this time some of the other thirteen hostages were able
to video call their family. Yes, the Red Cross took
this first group of hostages, as I said, to the IDF,
who then took them from there to reunite with their
families and receive urgent medical treatment. And then the same
process was repeated with the remaining thirteen hostages about three
(03:16):
hours later. Once all of those hostages were across the
border into Israel, Israeli forces began moving prisoners and detainees
from jails in buses out of the country.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
So those are the Palestinian prisoners and detainees who are
being held by Israel.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
One question that I have had people ask me is
what is the difference between prisoners and detainees. And it's
a really good question because it's not something that if
we were talking about, you know, people in jail here
in Australia, we wouldn't be using that distinction. Why are
we using that distinction here?
Speaker 1 (03:50):
The distinction is how these people ended up in Israeli jails.
So of the two thousand people released after the hostages,
two hundred and fifty were people on life sentences, including
people convicted of murder or planning and executing terror attacks.
So these people have been charged with a crime, tried
(04:12):
for a crime, and sentenced. But the majority of the group,
the other seventeen hundred were people Israel detained after the
seventh of October twenty twenty three. The majority of those,
I would say after seven October, and the wording of
the US led peace plan was that Israel needed to
release quote all women and children detained in that context,
(04:34):
and detained here means like taken into custody. Both the
UN Human Rights Office and Israeli human rights group Bethsalem
have found Israeli authorities have detained thousands of Palestinians indefinitely
without laying charges, without holding a trial. You and I
spent a lot of time on Monday going through that
(04:55):
UN Rights Office report published in July twenty twenty four,
which specifically looked at what this report called the IDF's
quote arbitrary detention of Palestinians. After the seventh of October,
the UN found the IDF took Palestinians quote into custody
while they were sheltering in place or passing through checkpoints
(05:17):
while being displaced within Gaza. As we know, over the
last two years or have been many different movement and
displacement orders.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Right, So just to recap, when you say prisoners, they
are people who have been tried and are now in
prison because of that. And then when we say detainees,
those are people who broadly were arbitrarily detained by Israel,
you know, when they were fleeing Gaza or something like that.
And that is the overwhelming majority of the nearly two
thousand people who were released on Monday, Yes, got it.
(05:47):
And so where were they taken when they were released
on Monday.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
So some were taken to the West Bank, which is
considered part of the occupied Palestinian territories under international law.
Others were taken to go which has been the target
of Israel's bombardment over the last two years. The prisoners
and detainees taken to Gaza join thousands of Palestinians moving
through Gaza, going back to where they once lived. As
(06:13):
I said, all those kind of displacement orders back in April,
so a few months ago. Now, the un estimated Israel's
bombing has damaged, if not destroyed, more than ninety percent
of all residences in Gaza. So that's just residences, just homes.
We also know Israel has bombed hospitals, universities, roads, mosques, churches,
(06:37):
destroying them in most cases. And that sort of takes
me to the third point in our chronology. We've now
touched on hostages, We've touched on prisoners and detainees. The
third thing I said we were going to talk about
was Trump's speech to the Knesset, and I bring this
up because he actually specifically mentioned rebuilding Gaza.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
I want to thank the Arab and Muslim nations for
their commitment as they've made to support a safe rebuilding
of Gaza and beyond. I have many Arab countries, very
wealthy countries that came up and said we'll put up
tremendous amounts of money to get rebuilt, to rebuild Gaza,
(07:18):
and I think that's going to happen.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Those comments aligned with what we know Trump said a
few other times also on Monday, which is that the
war is over. Those are his words. The US is
not officially speaking a party to this conflict. So why
is Trump saying.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
That the US is not an official party in the
sense of literally having soldiers on the ground necessarily in
terms of that specific conflict. But it has been heavily
involved from the beginning as Israel's closest ally, and the
US has sent billions of dollars in funding and sold
billions of dollars of weapons to Israel, and has also
(07:59):
been directly involved in negotiations under previous President Joe Biden
under current President Donald Trump. I said before also that
all of this is happening as part of a US
led ceasefire plan, and that plan specifies that Gaza will
be overseen by a board that includes Trump. There's also
the aspect that we've talked about many times now on
(08:21):
this podcast. Trump openly is seeking the Nobel Peace Prize
and has been nominated by Netnyahu for the twenty twenty
six prize. So he has a motivation for saying the
war is over under his plan. He's saying the war
is over because I need there to be peace.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
It's interesting the conversation about the Nobel Peace Prize. I've
also heard Australia's Foreign Minister Penny Wong saying that she
actually does believe that Donald Trump should be eligible and
could indeed receive it because of his efforts in negotiating
this plan. But that's a whole other thing. One thing
that I want to touch on is the fact that
we have heard that this is just the first fase. Yeah,
(09:00):
but from my understanding, we don't know what the second
phase of this specific plan looks like. So what do
we know about what happens next?
Speaker 1 (09:09):
I wish I could give you more details. Certainly, we
have covered the points that Trump is trying to make
happen on a previous episode, which will link in the
show notes. The next immediate step that has already taken
place is that a group of world leaders met in
Egypt to discuss what happens next for Gaza. People like
Trump attended French President Emmanuel Macron Mahmoudabas, who leads the
(09:34):
Palestinian Authority. Now, the Authority governs parts of the West
Bank and is meant eventually to take governance of the
entire state of Palestine, including Gaza. Abbas's attendance was confirmed
on Monday, so later than the other world leaders, and
there was an announcement that Natnyahu would attend to but
(09:55):
then that was actually very quickly withdrawn because of a
religious holiday around this time. So I should also note
that Hamas did not send representatives, so Israel and Hamas
were not represented at this these peace talks. This Egypt
summit was pretty short. Trump actually has already headed back
to the US at the time of recording. It was
(10:17):
accompanied by a lot of meetings on the side, and
I would say the main thing that came out of
it was that Trump and the leaders of Egypt, Turkey
and Qatar, all of whom have been involved in ceasefine negotiations,
signed a document. This document essentially says these countries commit
to pursuing peace long term, but it doesn't have a
(10:37):
lot of specifics. Trump also again in a speech, committed
to rebuilding Gaza, but he refused to commit to a
two state solution with a state of Israel and a
state of Palestine, as other countries including Australia have, and
he said negotiations had begun on this second phase. But
as I said, I wish I had more details, but
(10:57):
he did not go into those details. That was published
did not have a lot of details. This summit is
already over.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
That's interesting. I didn't realize that the Egypt summit is
already over.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
I also had a perception, I don't know how, but
it is going to be long, but it turns out
it really wasn't.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
All we really know now is that Trump says he's
seeking a lasting piece, but we don't know how that
will look. We don't know what the next phase of
negotiations really will involve, and there are still a lot
of questions unanswered. I hate to leave the listeners with
so many open questions, but I've really told you all
that we can say.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Yeah, so this stage we have now all of the
remaining hostages have been.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Released, at least all of the little White hostages.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
We also know that the Palestinian prisoners and detainees have
been released by Israel. And we also know that Israel
has withdrawn to an agreed uponline. That's the official wording
in Gaza. In terms of what is next, we don't know.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
We don't know. There's a lot of things still to
me negotiated, such as Hamas disarming, which is what Israel
is calling for. Whether or not that will actually happen
still to be determined.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
All right, well, Lucy, we will as always keep a
very close eye on what happens next. Thank you for explaining,
Thanks Billy, and thank you so much for listening to
this episode of The Daily os. We'll be back this
afternoon with your evening headlines, but until then, have a
great day.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda
Bunjelung Kalkotin woman from Gadigol Country. The Daily oz acknowledges
that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the
Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Island and nations.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries,
both past and present.
Already and this is this is the Daily This is
the Daily OS.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Oh, now it makes sense.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Good morning, and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Wednesday,
the fifteenth of October. I'm Lucy Tassel, I'm Billiefit Simon's.
On Monday, Hamas released the twenty living hostages. It took
two years ago, and Israel released almost two thousand Palestinian
prisoners and detainees. Speaking to media on a flight to
Israel that day, US President Donald Trump said.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
This the war is over. Okay, you understand that.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
In today's episode, we'll walk you through the events of
Monday and explain what we know about the next steps.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
So, Lucy, a lot happened on Monday. We had Hamas
releasing the twenty living remaining hostages. We had Israel also
releasing almost two thousand prison and detainees. Yeah, and Trump
spoke at Israel's parliament, which is called the Kanesset. Let's
go through each of those one by one.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Yeah, So we'll start kind of in chronological order. The
first event of those was the release of the hostages,
So that happened in two batches two years ago. As
anyone listening to this podcast would know, Hamas attacked Israel,
taking two hundred and forty people hostage, including soldiers and
civilians such as people who were attending a music festival
(01:33):
near the border of Gaza, and Hamas also took others
from their homes, again also near the border of Gaza.
Many hostages, both living and dead, were released or rescued
by Israeli forces over the last two years. Those kind
of releases happened in previous pauses in hostilities, such as
in January. That meant that by Monday there were forty
(01:56):
eight still in Gaza. Twenty we have now confirmed were alive.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
So then that means that there are twenty eight who
have died whilst being held captive. What do we know
about those people?
Speaker 1 (02:08):
We know that Hamas is meant to release their remains
to the Red Cross, which has been facilitating these hostage transfers,
who will then give them to the IDF for identification.
At the time of recording, Hamas has returned four and
earlier this week, a spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netnya who said that if Hamas can't locate the remains
(02:30):
of any hostages. This spokesperson said an international body will
be set up to find their remains. But back to
Monday and to the living hostages. It started really a
little after four pm Sydney time. Hamas released seven living
hostages to the Red Cross, who picked them up in
Gaza and took them to the IDF's custody. And around
(02:55):
this time some of the other thirteen hostages were able
to video call their family. Yes, the Red Cross took
this first group of hostages, as I said, to the IDF,
who then took them from there to reunite with their
families and receive urgent medical treatment. And then the same
process was repeated with the remaining thirteen hostages about three
(03:16):
hours later. Once all of those hostages were across the
border into Israel, Israeli forces began moving prisoners and detainees
from jails in buses out of the country.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
So those are the Palestinian prisoners and detainees who are
being held by Israel.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
One question that I have had people ask me is
what is the difference between prisoners and detainees. And it's
a really good question because it's not something that if
we were talking about, you know, people in jail here
in Australia, we wouldn't be using that distinction. Why are
we using that distinction here?
Speaker 1 (03:50):
The distinction is how these people ended up in Israeli jails.
So of the two thousand people released after the hostages,
two hundred and fifty were people on life sentences, including
people convicted of murder or planning and executing terror attacks.
So these people have been charged with a crime, tried
(04:12):
for a crime, and sentenced. But the majority of the group,
the other seventeen hundred were people Israel detained after the
seventh of October twenty twenty three. The majority of those,
I would say after seven October, and the wording of
the US led peace plan was that Israel needed to
release quote all women and children detained in that context,
(04:34):
and detained here means like taken into custody. Both the
UN Human Rights Office and Israeli human rights group Bethsalem
have found Israeli authorities have detained thousands of Palestinians indefinitely
without laying charges, without holding a trial. You and I
spent a lot of time on Monday going through that
(04:55):
UN Rights Office report published in July twenty twenty four,
which specifically looked at what this report called the IDF's
quote arbitrary detention of Palestinians. After the seventh of October,
the UN found the IDF took Palestinians quote into custody
while they were sheltering in place or passing through checkpoints
(05:17):
while being displaced within Gaza. As we know, over the
last two years or have been many different movement and
displacement orders.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Right, So just to recap, when you say prisoners, they
are people who have been tried and are now in
prison because of that. And then when we say detainees,
those are people who broadly were arbitrarily detained by Israel,
you know, when they were fleeing Gaza or something like that.
And that is the overwhelming majority of the nearly two
thousand people who were released on Monday, Yes, got it.
(05:47):
And so where were they taken when they were released
on Monday.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
So some were taken to the West Bank, which is
considered part of the occupied Palestinian territories under international law.
Others were taken to go which has been the target
of Israel's bombardment over the last two years. The prisoners
and detainees taken to Gaza join thousands of Palestinians moving
through Gaza, going back to where they once lived. As
(06:13):
I said, all those kind of displacement orders back in April,
so a few months ago. Now, the un estimated Israel's
bombing has damaged, if not destroyed, more than ninety percent
of all residences in Gaza. So that's just residences, just homes.
We also know Israel has bombed hospitals, universities, roads, mosques, churches,
(06:37):
destroying them in most cases. And that sort of takes
me to the third point in our chronology. We've now
touched on hostages, We've touched on prisoners and detainees. The
third thing I said we were going to talk about
was Trump's speech to the Knesset, and I bring this
up because he actually specifically mentioned rebuilding Gaza.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
I want to thank the Arab and Muslim nations for
their commitment as they've made to support a safe rebuilding
of Gaza and beyond. I have many Arab countries, very
wealthy countries that came up and said we'll put up
tremendous amounts of money to get rebuilt, to rebuild Gaza,
(07:18):
and I think that's going to happen.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Those comments aligned with what we know Trump said a
few other times also on Monday, which is that the
war is over. Those are his words. The US is
not officially speaking a party to this conflict. So why
is Trump saying.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
That the US is not an official party in the
sense of literally having soldiers on the ground necessarily in
terms of that specific conflict. But it has been heavily
involved from the beginning as Israel's closest ally, and the
US has sent billions of dollars in funding and sold
billions of dollars of weapons to Israel, and has also
(07:59):
been directly involved in negotiations under previous President Joe Biden
under current President Donald Trump. I said before also that
all of this is happening as part of a US
led ceasefire plan, and that plan specifies that Gaza will
be overseen by a board that includes Trump. There's also
the aspect that we've talked about many times now on
(08:21):
this podcast. Trump openly is seeking the Nobel Peace Prize
and has been nominated by Netnyahu for the twenty twenty
six prize. So he has a motivation for saying the
war is over under his plan. He's saying the war
is over because I need there to be peace.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
It's interesting the conversation about the Nobel Peace Prize. I've
also heard Australia's Foreign Minister Penny Wong saying that she
actually does believe that Donald Trump should be eligible and
could indeed receive it because of his efforts in negotiating
this plan. But that's a whole other thing. One thing
that I want to touch on is the fact that
we have heard that this is just the first fase. Yeah,
(09:00):
but from my understanding, we don't know what the second
phase of this specific plan looks like. So what do
we know about what happens next?
Speaker 1 (09:09):
I wish I could give you more details. Certainly, we
have covered the points that Trump is trying to make
happen on a previous episode, which will link in the
show notes. The next immediate step that has already taken
place is that a group of world leaders met in
Egypt to discuss what happens next for Gaza. People like
Trump attended French President Emmanuel Macron Mahmoudabas, who leads the
(09:34):
Palestinian Authority. Now, the Authority governs parts of the West
Bank and is meant eventually to take governance of the
entire state of Palestine, including Gaza. Abbas's attendance was confirmed
on Monday, so later than the other world leaders, and
there was an announcement that Natnyahu would attend to but
(09:55):
then that was actually very quickly withdrawn because of a
religious holiday around this time. So I should also note
that Hamas did not send representatives, so Israel and Hamas
were not represented at this these peace talks. This Egypt
summit was pretty short. Trump actually has already headed back
to the US at the time of recording. It was
(10:17):
accompanied by a lot of meetings on the side, and
I would say the main thing that came out of
it was that Trump and the leaders of Egypt, Turkey
and Qatar, all of whom have been involved in ceasefine negotiations,
signed a document. This document essentially says these countries commit
to pursuing peace long term, but it doesn't have a
(10:37):
lot of specifics. Trump also again in a speech, committed
to rebuilding Gaza, but he refused to commit to a
two state solution with a state of Israel and a
state of Palestine, as other countries including Australia have, and
he said negotiations had begun on this second phase. But
as I said, I wish I had more details, but
(10:57):
he did not go into those details. That was published
did not have a lot of details. This summit is
already over.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
That's interesting. I didn't realize that the Egypt summit is
already over.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
I also had a perception, I don't know how, but
it is going to be long, but it turns out
it really wasn't.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
All we really know now is that Trump says he's
seeking a lasting piece, but we don't know how that
will look. We don't know what the next phase of
negotiations really will involve, and there are still a lot
of questions unanswered. I hate to leave the listeners with
so many open questions, but I've really told you all
that we can say.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Yeah, so this stage we have now all of the
remaining hostages have been.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Released, at least all of the little White hostages.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
We also know that the Palestinian prisoners and detainees have
been released by Israel. And we also know that Israel
has withdrawn to an agreed uponline. That's the official wording
in Gaza. In terms of what is next, we don't know.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
We don't know. There's a lot of things still to
me negotiated, such as Hamas disarming, which is what Israel
is calling for. Whether or not that will actually happen
still to be determined.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
All right, well, Lucy, we will as always keep a
very close eye on what happens next. Thank you for explaining,
Thanks Billy, and thank you so much for listening to
this episode of The Daily os. We'll be back this
afternoon with your evening headlines, but until then, have a
great day.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda
Bunjelung Kalkotin woman from Gadigol Country. The Daily oz acknowledges
that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the
Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Island and nations.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries,
both past and present.
Popular Podcasts
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.