Ziv Agmon, legal adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, said Israeli hostages will be received individually or in groups by the International Committee of the Red Cross and taken across the border and handed to the Israeli army.

Military officials “will meet each hostage and identify them physically and by the lists to see that these are the correct people”, Agmon said.

Doctors would perform a “full physical examination” of every released hostage, and they would be able to telephone family members, in a conversation that would be monitored by professionals, AFP reports.

“This is very important,” Agmon said.

“Many people have family members who are not alive anymore, there are children with parents that were murdered, siblings who were also murdered.”

The released hostages would then be flown to five major hospitals and medical facilities around Israel, where they would be physically reunited with their loved ones.