among them. then the judge who critics say is slow walking one of donald trump's biggest criminal cases. what it could mean for the 2024 election. and all the arguments you are dreading at thanksgiving dinner. our panel brings you if facts on the stories you'll be talking about all weekend as "the 11th hour" gets under way on this wednesday night. good evening once again. i'm stephanie ruhle. the deal for a hostage release has brought hope now new worries of those families kids nped by hamas. many of those families were anticipating reunions their loved ones after initial reports suggested at least some hostages could be freeds aurally as tomorrow morn, but late today israel's government said there'll be no release before friday. my colleague, keir simmons has all the details. >> tonight a delay to the long negotiated break in gaza's bloodshed. the hostage release including three americans and potentially many children will not happen before friday. this 3-year-old may be among them. her parents were killed. >> our emotions just going a little more crazy because it does feel like we're closer. >> reporter: the delay despite the head in qatar tonight to agree to final details of 50 hostages to be freed over four days. the aim to release 100 hostages officials say and 300 palestinian prisoners, teenagers and women some jailed for minor offenses, others for attempted murder. a day of frantic phone calls for families like the mother of mia, forced to appear in a hostage video hoping their wait will soon be over. >> it's like russian roulette. we're waiting to see who will come back home. >> reporter: prime minister netanyahu had hailed the deal saying it included visits by the red cross to the other abductees, those israel's prime minister vowing a short pause would not end the war. while hamas today releasing another video of fierce fighting. truckloads of aid are planned, but today there was no end to the civilian suffering. they are massacring us before the truce, this man says. >> meanwhile, pope francis heard directly from both palestinian families living through the fighting in gaza and israeli families whose loved ones are being held by hamas. my colleague anne thompson has more from rome. >> reporter: at his private residence pope francis met separately. american rachel goldberg's 23-year-old son hergs was captured october 7th. the number of days he's been gone stick to her chest. >> i actually said to him my heart was taken 47 days ago and i will wear the number on my heart until my heart comes back. >> reporter: she brought a picture of him and showed the poep a video of his capture, his lower left arm blown off by a grenade. how did the pope react to that? >> he put his hand on his heart and spoke in italian saying his heart is with me. >> reporter: rachel and her husband say today's hostage agreement gives them hope even if their son isn't freed because the red cross will be finally able to see him. the spal stinnians say the pope listened to them about their plight. >> he can ask for immediate cease-fire, but this is not the only thing we ask for. we ask him to use his power for more just a long lasting peace. >> as we wait for a humanitarian pause to begin we should note note so far only five of the the more than 200 hostages center been freed. first i want to turn nbc news correspondent david noriega in tel aviv. give us more details why specifically this has been delayed. >> stephanie, unfortunately we don't. all we know is that it has been delayed. from what we know the actual core elements of that agreement the exchange to begin possibly leading it more, as far as we know those parts of the agreement still stand. still, the fact that the timing of this agreement, which people here in israel were expecting to begin to take place just four hours from now where i'm standing, the fact that has been throne into uncertainty has injected a degree of uncertainty into what was already a very high anxiety situation. people here understand that this is a very fragile agreement. it's a high wire act, and it could collapse at any moment. there is a lot of hope that it will still happen, but what has been an agonizing wait for the families of these hostages is at this point going to be prolonged and we still don't know why how much. >> have we heard from the israeli government anything around how the hostages will be released? >> yeah, what we know is that there -- we've gotten some details on the protocols of the release and it will involve the red cross. the hostages will be transferred from the red cross and then transferred to israeli custody, to idf custody. then there are six hospitals inside israel ready to prepared to receive these freed hostages. again, these are mostly going to be women and children. the priority is ensuring the hostages are well, okay. ensuring not too many people arrived to see them except for their sort of closest family and any other people the hostages themselves request to see. also remember a lot of these hostages are children, so there's a lot of sort of delicate consideration how these children will be treated. the israeli ministry of health care released various details saying, for example, don't pressure these children to do anything such as take a shower, allow them tool if they want to, but otherwise don't put any pressure on them to do so. it's going to be very delicate, and those details are still coming in, but again people here are just very on edge waiting to find out whether this is going to happen at all. stephanie? >> david, thank you for joining us. now let's bring in our lead off panel tonight some of my favorites are here. my dear friend john allen, senior national politics reporter for nbc. peter baker, chief white house correspondent for "the new york times," and ned lazarus, his first visit to "the 11th hour," international affairs professor at george washington university's elliot school. peter, your son theo is here, so we have live studio audience tonight. so i'm going to let you go first. you better impress. why do you actually actually there's a delay? there's a lot of details that go into this. you're trying to effectuate between two parties hostile to each other. it signals it could be coming apart at the seams and that's the worry. even if hamas did live up to its agreement you've got other groups in gaza not necessarily subscribing to their leadership that might do something to upset the applecart and you can see the whole thing unraveling really quickly, so that's why i think everybody's on tenterhooks right now. >> the positive do you think there's a chance the delay is a sign of something bigger? >> i think that the delay is a sign that there is as peter said no trust as far as the tails that have come out. the delay is due to hamas not having signed off officially on the protocol of how it will happen and not having shared some details of -- in the-lace of hostages who will be released. and every single detail that it's possible to get -- to control and be aware of is necessary. >> ned, the families of these hostages have been suffering -- i mean unimaginable suffering for the last 41 days, and they have worked so hard to keep their family's stories front and center. what must the feeling be like today when they learn there's a delay? >> i think it's hard for any of us to imagine given it's 48 days now and we have seen in the israeli media many interviews. they've kept the story front and center, and marched through the country arriving in jerusalem and protesting just this week. there are a lot of tensions. this is a partial deal. only less than a quarter of the hostages are slated to be released. and still no one knows who's going to be released. in the ed media interviewers ask are their tensions between you, they ask the families of the hostages. people try very hard to say we'll be happy for everyone who's released, but you can't imagine the tension of not knowing up to this point whether or not your child, your wife, your son, your father is going to be alive or freed. >> alive or dead. president biden spoke to egypt and qatar. >> i think they're trying to be as circumspect as possible. they've done sp briefing around town to talk to reporters what they might expect. but they don't want to blow this thing up for just the reasons that peter and i were talking about. it's so fragile. once you come to an agreement all the logistics that have to be worked out with the release of 300 prisoners in israel to get 50 hostages there's a lot that has to be worked out. they would love to claim some victory here to make it look like there was something approximating peace for the hard left. they're calling for a cease-fire and have a pause, and they think that's politically helpful to them, but i think they're very aware these things can dissolve very quickly. and there's no trust between the united states and hamas, much like there's no trust between hamas and israel. so we talk about these other countries intermediaries and i think people wonder sometimes why are these countries talking to hamas, and that's because the united states and israel can't negotiate with a terrorist group without an intermediary. >> we heard from biden today about a key intermediator. >> the only way to get a humanitarian pause in place is through an agreement to bring the hostages home, and there was a number of very, very difficult intensive conversations between the president and other leaders that helped get this done. this was a rigorously negotiated deal. i have to say the terms of this deal really could not have been achieved a month ago. >> your colleagues at the time have reported on this secret cell of biden advisers. how important are those advisers, how important is the u.s. to nailing this agreement? >> that's one of the secret cells, the colleagues working on this without telling the rest of the government. he was on the phone almost every single day with the intermediary with hamas. there were multiple points along the way it almost came apart. at one point they had a deal and the communications went dark. remember when the israeli strikes were having an impact on communications. when they came back online, they said, no, the deal was off. so you had all these very tense moments along the way as john rightly pointed out. these are not people who trust each other. they don't have a working relationship in that sense at a moment of great violence and anger and tragedy, so it required the americans to be the -- the sort of arbiters of this, and i think that doing it secretly -- what they hope is the first day of a multi-stage process. to get these 50 out and then more to come, 240 total, that's what they would like to get out. >> john, how do you see -- how do you believe joe biden sees his role in trying to resolve this conflict, this idea to bring peace to the middle east? because even within his own democratic party, there are factions who want very different things. >> yeah, it's politically a complete disaster for the biden -- >> for anyone in the white house. >> certainly any democrat in the white house. and for biden what he's been trying to do the entire time, and this is not solely related to politics. in this case the politics and policy goals align which means he's trying to keep a lid on what could become a broader war in the middle east which still could become a broader war in the middle east and the best way to do that is resolve this as quickly as possible. i think what i'm also hearing when officials talk recently is they are moving from a place of just crisis to trying to see if they can turn a crisis into an opportunity to try to move forward, and i -- i would say this with skepticism that they're going to be able to do it, but when you hear the rhetoric what they're saying is they'd like to see something that turns into a broader deal. >> we're turning to the expert in the region. do you actually believe that the biden administration or anyone can turn this crisis into an opportunity? i mean you have spent years in the region. do you see reasonably not idealisticly any reasonable idea of peace in the middle east at this point? what would that look like? >> certainly not in the immediate term but i think the way this crisis plays out and the steps it biden administration takes and whether it can encourage the israeli government to take certain steps will be crucial in determining whether this happens again in five years or in ten years or whether in five years we are looking at the beginning of a different direction. this is -- certainly this is the worst crisis that's happened between israel and hamas, and it's really the worst crisis in the israeli palestinian conflict since probably 1948, since the foundation of israel. but it is the fifth or sixth round of hostilities, major hostilities between israel and hamas since hamas seized control of the gaza strip in 2007. so this is, you know, something that has happened every few years, and the biggest question diplomatic speaking, politically speaking is at the end of this war is this just another round in that -- that ongoing conflict? or is this going to change the situation in gaza and the situation between israel and the palestinians? it is not going to be peace, certainly, at the end of this, but, you know, again the steps that are taken, the governance that is established in gaza after the war will be crucial in determining whether that becomes more possible. >> and what do you think it would look like? let's say israel is successful in leveling gaza while at the same time trying to be mindful of the palestinians there. what happens there? >> leveling gaza i don't think is the goal that the stated goal is to remove hamas as a military threat -- >> it's not a goal but seems like it's approaching to be the consequence. >> it is certainly the destruction in north gaza right now is enormous, but i think the goal is to remove hamas from power as the governing authority in gaza and remove gaza as the military threat. there's no guarantee that will be a case. the whole conversation about the day after that is a very big conversation popping up more and more even in israel as much as the current leaders would like to save that conversation for some time later. and the options that are being raised are israeli occupation, reoccupation of gaza, the somehow international force made up of arab states that have peaceful relations with israel and the u.n. or the palestinian authority. and the term they're using for it right now would be a vevitalized palestinian authority because there's recognition the palestinian authority is currently widely seen as corrupt, is not popular with its own people and would hardly be seen as an effective framework for governing if it were to walk in tomorrow. >> peter, if this deal does happen what does it mean for the all those palestinians trapped in gaza? >> well, i mean the pause is four days so that's not very much on the front end. so i think there's a hope it gets extended. you have ten hostages per day in this first traunch. let's say you have another ten and becomes five days and another ten and it becomes six days. you talked about this before on your show. i think the idea is in the administration and they won't say it out loud quite this way but their hope at some point down the road maybe it leads to cessation that goes beyond the hostages, that israel might decide they might accomplish enough and they want to go into south gaza and for instance the administration said they don't like that idea, and that's where a lot of people are taking shelter, so i think their hope is maybe we get into a new phase with this pause and it becomes something more sustained, but we don't know that's going to be the case, obviously netanyahu doesn't want to be the case, and that was the problem with the war cabinet buzz they don't want it to be the case either. >> john, you know, we keep reading these headlines that given president biden's position he has lost some support and you were referencing it moments ago from some democrats. given the party is divided on this, he was going to lose some no matter what position he took. >> i think that's right. the reason i said originally this was a political crisis for biden just it happened, and he's got to try to control what the problem is. yeah, he had a place i think where he risked losing on either side. i think what he risks now is having come out firmly on one side and potentially retreating and i was going to use a different term, potentially angering both sides, right, and really getting them in a place where they can't trust each other. i mean, they're watching each other, right, so the hard left is watching the moderate democrats, the ones pro-israel and they're like i don't trust us. because they're in the democratic party makes me feel like i'm not a democrat. the pro-israel are looking at the far left and saying to themselves even though i like what joe biden is doing, i don't know if i can be part of that party because of what folks on the hard left are saying. for biden like i said before resolving this quickly is the best policy, but it's very much the politics for his re-election. >> in terms of politics you mentioned the hard left democrats are looking at the moderate democrats, the moderates are looking at the hard left. are either one of them looking across the aisle at republicans and saying what do we need to do because a year from now what we need more than anything is make sure joe biden's in the oval office. >> i mean right now the passions are so high on this issue on both sides they aren't really doing that. there's a republican primary going on and much of the republicans think donald trump is going to be a nominee over there, and by the time donald trump has been out there for a long time the white house hopes and it is perhaps true that the democrats will start to focus on him rather than what they see as a short come as a biden or from their own party on each of sides. but for moment the passions are high and they're working internally and saying why is it somebody i'm going to ally with on so many things sees this so differently than i do? why is it they feel the pain i do in seeing my side or the people i care most about die, being taken hostage, losing their homes. it's something that, again, the people are passionate about it because it hurts and matters to them. i don't think it's something easily reconcilable. >> before we go, ned, you are a true expert in this region. what is one thing that you think the average western doesn't know, doesn't understand, because of all of us sitting here you definitely consume the media and are frustrate by something. what do we need to know? >> i think some of it things there might be a disconnect. we all want the suffering to start. we want the war to end ipmany ways here because of the pain, because of divisions, but over there it's talked about in very different ways. and in israel there's a very wide consensus that the war needs to continue because, you know, the attack that hamas launched on october 7th was, you know, simply such -- on such a massive scale compare today anything that it's done before and also because actors like ezhezbollah and iran are watching closely and have a long-term strategy of trying to, you know, render israel incapable of defending itself is standing up to these attacks and for those reasons there's a very, very broad consensus in israel that the war is not over. people absolutely want to get out all of the hostages, and there's wide support for this agreement. but i do think that even with whatever momentum and again with all the important humanitarian aid and hopefully someone can -- hopefully people can do things to create better conditions for the palestinians in gaza and perhaps to change strategies so that t