to join us today. of course we're hoping for the best for these three college students and their families. >> thank you. i appreciate that. we'll keep you posted and let's just, you know, hope we don't see this again and there's no room for hate as everybody has been saying throughout this process and as the victims have been saying and the families. let's hope the suspect is apprehended and our students in this country aren't subject to such attacks in the future. >> all right. thank you so much. ♪ all right. hello, again, everyone. thank you so much for joining us. i'm frederica whitfield alongside wolf blitzer in tel aviv. and we have this breaking news, just moments ago, some of the israeli hostages released by hamas today arrived at the schneider children's medical center. this was the moment a helicopter carrying them touched down. we're also learning all 17 hostages released today have now been transferred to hospitals. it marks a dramatic end to the 50-day ordeal that they have been through since being kidnapped by hamas on october 7th. and among those released in this third hostage handover, dual israeli american citizen abigail edan who is only 4 years old, president biden spoke with abigail's family earlier today. she's the first american released since the four-day truce began between israel and hamas. moments ago, hamas announced its intention to extend that truce which is set to expire tomorrow. a source now tells cnn that israel's war cabinet met today to discuss that very possibility of doing just that. let's go now to tel aviv and wolf blitzer. wolf? >> frederica, thank you very much. cnn has corporates on the ground, across the region, tracking all of the late-breaking developments. oren lieberman is with me here in tel aviv. i want to bring him in first. we've learned that israel's war cabinet met today. what more are you learning about this? >> that's a major development in and of itself. at the very beginning when israel announced it had approved this truce, it said there will be an extension one day for every ten israeli hostages released. we didn't really about it from that point on. we didn't know if it would be extended and certainly there were major questions if the deal itself would old over the four-day period yesterday when it seemed like it was on incredible shaky ground and might risk falling apart. the country stepped in. the u.s. stepped in. the deal held yesterday and we saw it work much more smoothly today. the u.s. had viewed the first two days as a testing period. we got through those and now is the opportunity and the time where it's possible to talk about extending this deal. and that's what the war cabinet is doing according to a source familiar with the discussions. it's a major step to get to this point. hamas also indicated they're interested in an extension and it remains complicated. the humanitarian aid needs to keep going in, the hostages need to keep being released, the prisoners need to keep being released. just because it's worked for three days and will work for a fourth, that doesn't guarantee it in any way and it will take an effort to get it over the finish line to extend it a day at a time. >> if this truth, this pause is not extended, the remaining hostages will remain in gaza. >> and the war is back on. we believe immediately after the truce expires which would be sometime tomorrow or the next day. >> so the stakes right now are enormous right now. the pressure on the israeli government, we can feel that pressure. they want all these israeli hostages home. >> there's a tremendous amount of pressure on the israeli government from the inside and that's what you're talking about. we've seen the demonstrations to push the government to bring all the hostages home. but also for the outside, the international community has seen what's happened in northern gaza. the results of the israeli assault there, the humanitarian crisis that is deepening and they know that if aid doesn't continue to go in, that humanitarian crisis will only worsen. israel facing a tremendous amount of pressure internally, exper externally to keep this process going as long as possible. >> we'll see what happens on this front. it's a very, very important moment right now in this entire situation. i want to go to matthew chance. he's standing by. he's over at the schneider children's medical center. we just saw some of those hostages arrive where you are. first of all, has there been any updates at all on the conditions of these hostages once they arrive at the hospital? if you gotten any specific information on that front? >> not specific information from our perspective. we've not heard from the hospital. we've seen these two giant military helicopters one of which is still parked on the he helipad deliver the hostages to the schneider medical center. there are nine children worship rel who were released in this third group. we believe -- and this is what we've been told, that the group set up to help the families, that they've all been brought here, all the children have been brought here. and that includes, of course, 4-year-old u.s. israeli citizen abigail edan. she had her fourth birthed on friday as a hostage. she's been met here by her family but it's going to be difficult. as we've been reporting, her family says that she doesn't know. she's not yet aware. maybe she's not old enough to understand. but she's an orphan because both her mother and father were killed in the small israeli community near gaza which was attacked with several others on october the 7th and from where she was ripped away into captivity inside gaza. you spoke earlier about, you know, what happened to her. she was in her father's arms, he was trying to protect her. she ran to her next-door neighbor's house and tried to take shelter with them. but they were all abducted together and now hagar brodutch who was the mother, they were released alongside abigail. they've been released from captivity inside gaza. so that's i supposed one positive as well. the father told me how excited he was going to be to meet his family after 50 days. chen goldstein almog was released today. they're going to be coming into a changed world. the children's father and one of the sisters was killed as well. and so all of these hostages, whether they've lost loved ones or whether those loved ones are still welcoming them back here, they've still endured an unimaginable amount of trauma. the process of recovering from that is going to be a very, very long one indeed. >> matthew, have any of the hostages been able to share how they were treated by hamas during their ordeal, 50 days as hostages? >> reporter: yeah, they have. there have been some israeli hostages that have come out and said, actually, they were -- they didn't eat well. they were given just rice and bread and so -- and lost a lot of weight. and so that's one account from some israeli hostages that have given statements to the media over the course of the past 24 hours. less than that. a thai hostage, the sister of a thai hostage, one of the foreign nationals who has been released has told the media that her brother says he was treated well. he wasn't tortured. he was kept in a house and his food was good. slightly kind of contradictory accounts of the different circumstances obviously different people were kept in. i think that's important. because of the 240 hostages that israel believed are being -- were being held before these releases started happening inside of gaza, they're not all in one place. some are in tunnels, some are kept in houses, all in very varying degrees of hardship. and so, you know, obviously everybody's experience of this 50 days or so maybe very different, wolf. >> yeah, good point. stand by. i want to bring in larry. he's in cairo for us. officials in egypt where you are say more than 100 aid trucks successfully passed through that rafah border crossing from egypt today. what more are you learning about the aid that entered today because providing this aid, that's part of this overall hostage arraignment that's been worked out through qatar and egypt, the united states and others. >> we know that at least today according to the israelis that the allowed number of trucks, 200 trucks were allowed into gaza and 100 trucks made it into northern gaza. that is part of the delay saturday in releasing the hostages because hamas wants more aid getting into northern gaza. but that's part of the holdup here in trying to extend the truce. we're in a trace against time to figure out if it's going to be possible to extend it beyond the monday deadline when it ends and then the war is likely to go right back to where it was. and qatar says its putting in efforts, diplomatically and humanitarian, trying to extend this. it's evolving egypt in conversation with the united states to try and agree to extend this for some kind of period, again, the deal was for every ten hostages an extra day. hamas would have to release ten hostages to buy that extra day. if they're not holding the hostages, they have to find them somehow. they're with another group of civilians, that's one of the things we're hearing from the qataris here, that they're working to try to extend this. if egypt and the u.s. and everybody can agree to this, and the other hand, the aid has to be dramatically ramped up. this ceiling of 200 trucks is not something that the palestinians are happy about, it's not something that a lot are happy about. if you bring in medical equipment and they're having to wait for two weeks at the rafah border crossing, some of that medical equipment, the drugs and the medicines are expiring. if they cannot get in quickly, it's importantless. and that's one of the ways they will have to figure out if they can extend the truth. >> watching all of this unfold, thank you very much. oren liebermann, matthew chance, thank you as well. in exchange for the hostages released today, israel released 39 palestinian prisoners. we're going to take a quick break. our breaking news coverage will continue right after this. this evening images from ramallah in the west bank showing celebrations in the streets as buses carrying 39 palestinian prisoners and detainees arriving there. in exchange for the 17 israeli and foreign hostages released earlier in the day. this marks the third such exchange of hostages for prisoners between israel and hamas during their current four-day temporary truce. we are all over this story. what can you tell us about the prison releases? >> well, look, once again, wolf, we have seen this huge crowd gathering today focused around the downtown area where we have seen hundreds of people now gathering to celebrate and welcome the release of those 39 detainees and prisoners. this is the third day that we have seen palestinians who are held released as part of that truce agreement between israel and hamas which we'll see over the course of four days some 150 palestinians held in israeli custody released as part of that agreement. today, another 39 released. among them, 33 under the age of 18. teenagers, one as young as 14 years old and, again, the majority of them had been held under administration detention, meaning no charges were laid against them. no clear ongoing legal process for those who had been detained and, of course, this has been a huge moment of relief, of hope for many palestinians, both in the occupied west bank and in jerusalem. we were speaking to a number of those families yesterday as well as some of those teenagers who had been released, who spoke of their hope, of their joy of being reunited with family members. but, of course, this hasn't been an easy process. this has been quite a delicate process. yesterday, we saw some delays and information getting out to families as to who would actually be released. today things seem to have moved somewhat more smoothly than yesterday. they're still waiting to hear whether or not their children, brothers and sisters willing released tomorrow assist part of the fourth day of that truce agreement between israel and hamas. earlier in the week, we saw a list of about 300 palestinian detainees and prisoners issued by israeli authorities. those 300 are potentially eligible for release as part of that 150 figure. among those listed, one of the more common charges listed there was throwing stones as israeli soldiers as we've seen so often in the ongoing raids and clashes between palestinians and israeli forces and also risking and threatening regional security. of course, many of those were held under administrative detention. this is a list of women and children set to be released. we have been speaking to a number of these families, a number of those who had gathered yesterday, in fact, where we saw thousands of people taking to the street in the occupied west bank in celebration of this moment and many of them told us that while they were overjoyed to be reunited with family members, they couldn't completely be happy given the fact that we are seeing that mounting civilian death toll in the gaza strip. many telling us that they as palestinians in the occupied west bank feel as one with palestinians in the gaza strip. their hope is that this truce could potentially continue beyond that four-day point. they will continue to be a much needed respite for palestinians in the occupied west bank. but this is a very delicate process. as we know and we've seen over the last three days, it's independent on confirmation of the safe evacuation of those israeli hostages held in hamas captivity inside the gaza strip. this stage, of course, the qatari officials have been playing an essential role in keeping that agreement, the terms of that agreement upheld. it remains to be seen whether we continue to see that tomorrow, the hope is, again, that we will see more palestinians for those in the west bank and jerusalem released as part of that agreement. but there's been uncertainty around the process. there are still many families who do not know whether or not their loved ones, their relatives will be among those released tomorrow. >> that's a good point. and if, in fact, this truce is extended a few more days, more israeli hostages, presumably, will be released and more palestinian prisoners will be released at the same time. we'll see if the truce is extended, the stakes are clearly very significant right now. thank you very much. moments ago president biden arrived back in washington from nantucket. we're going to have a live report from the white house when we come back.. the power goes out and we still have wifi to do our homework. and that's a good thing? great in my book! who are you? no power? no problem. introducing storm-ready wifi. now you can stay reliably connected through power outages with unlimited cellular data and up to 4 hours of battery back-up to keep you online. only from xfinity. home of the xfinity 10g network. we're continuing to follow all this really important and historic breaking news. all 17 hostages released by hamas today have now been transferred to hospitals in israel. short time ago, some of the freed israeli hostages arrived at the schneider's children's medical center just outside of tel aviv. this was the moment a helicopter carrying them touched down. you can see that right there. among those released in this third hostage handover, abigail edan who is only four years old. president biden spoke with abigail's family earlier today. she is the first american released since the four-day truce since israel and hamas began. the white house says president biden also spoke today with the family of the 4-year-old american girl released as well as israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu. let's go to priscilla alvarez. she's joining us from the white house right now. what is the white house saying about those phone conversations? >> it was a busy afternoon of phone calls for president biden and in these readouts from the white house, they are keeping it brief and saying that the president had spoken with abigail's family both in the united states and israel. and that this was a topic of discussion as well between the president and prime minister benjamin netanyahu as well as the continued release of hostages and surging aid gaza. and we're also learning, wolf, more details about the push from the united states for the release of this 4-year-old. u.s. officials believe that she was held in northern gaza with her neighbors and the president pushed in his conversation with leaders over the last several weeks for her release in his negotiations along with the release of two other american women. now they were not part of the release today. that is still an ongoing effort by the united states and will see if they can secure their release in the hours and days to come. but the u.s. was able to track the movements of abigail edan over the course of the day today as she made her way to israel and the president was in close touch with his senior advisers as that was ongoing and they did not breathe a sigh of relief, wolf, until she was firmly in israel. and that is when we heard from the president today in his remarks to reporters where he talked about what abigail edan and these other hostages have endured. he says she's been through terrible trauma and her experience has been unthinkable. both of her parents killed in that october 7th attack. her siblings are alive. but this has, indeed, been what the president called an unthinkable experience and one that the president and his white house officials have been working closely behind the scenes to try to secure her release along with others. and he expressed optimism today that there could be more releases in the days to come and a potential continued pause in fighting if hamas were to agree to exchange ten hostages for each day in -- each day pause in fighting. take a listen. >> critically needed aid is going in and hostages are coming out. this still is structured so it can be extended to keep building on these results. that's my goal. that's our goal, to keep this pause going beyond tomorrow. so that we can continue to see more hostages come out and surge more humanitarian relief into those in need in gaza. >> now the message from the president is bottom line, the work is still ongoing. it's not yet done. that is what he and the israeli prime minister talked about today and the two will continue to remain in close contact over the days to come. wolf? >> priscilla at the white house for us, thank you very much. i want to bring in a cnn presidential historian and former director of the nixon presidential library. thanks so much for joining us. first of all, how significant is it for this first american, this child to be freed alongside these other hostages, israeli, thai and a duo russian israeli citizen? >> first of all, as a human being, it's an emotional moment when you look at the ages of all of the children that have been released. and you think of the terror that these children have been through, it's a beautiful moment. in terms of u.s. national security policy, it was very important that given the role the united states played in piecing together this agreement, that an american be released. and i understand that three are supposed to be released over the course of the four hostage releases. so that was very significant. it became clear that hamas was holding back the americans. as you would well know, we didn't see any americans released in the first and the second hostage releases. and it became clear that hamas was holding on to the americans maybe because the agreement with israel was beginning to fray. and hamas understood that the way to keep israel on track, their thinking was to make sure that the united states pressured israel and america will pressure israeli as long as american lives are at risk. >> the u.s.