hamas as part of this deal. congresswoman alissa slotkin, we appreciate you joining us this afternoon. our coverage of today s hostage our coverage of today s hostage release continues. captions by vitac www.vitac.com announcer: this is cnn breaking news. welcome to the lead. i m pamela brown in for jake tapper. we are following the major breaking news today. after more than 49 days in captivity, the first group of hostages held by hamas are now back in israel. and moments ago, we just saw some of those hostages met by cheers, as they arrive by helicopter at a children s hospital near tel aviv. we don t know how many people will be brought there. but sources say the mothers and their kids who were freed today, will not be separated. a total of 24 hostages were taken out of gaza earlier today in these vans right here by the red cross, where they then got their initial medical checks. now, the rest will all be taken to hospitals across israel based on their current me
team here, who have been working out of an operation center today, alongside members of the international committee of the red cross. another key stakeholders in this. and they certainly feel like this mostly went to plan. you are right to point out this is a humanitarian pause, and the implementation of that had a number of key obligations. the pause had to stop at 7:00 local time. the hostilities had to stop on the ground from both parties. that allowed for the potential for the release of these hostages, these 13 in the first instance israeli women and children, who had been held by hamas around about 4:00 this afternoon. what happened was we saw 24 hostages ultimately released. the process took about two and a half hours to get those hostages out of hamas hands, into the hands of the icrc and out of gaza into israel via the rafah crossing, which is down on the the egyptian boarder. the surprise, and i have to say i think it was a surprise as well, possibly to those invol