London: The Israel-Hamas deal, approved early Wednesday by Israel and mediated by Qatar with heavy U.S. involvement, stipulates a four-day pause in fighting, according to officials familiar with the matter.

Hamas would release 50 female and child hostages in the deal, while Israel would release 150 Palestinian prisoners (primarily women and children).

“The deal has ultimately been structured to incentivize releases beyond 50,” a senior U.S. official said, adding it “is now structured for women and children in the first phase, but with an expectation for further releases. The clear aim is to bring all hostages home to their families.”

An Israeli official said the 50 hostages anticipated to be released will be Israeli or Israeli dual nationals, and foreign nationals are not anticipated to be part of this specific exchange.

Israel would further permit 300 aid trucks per day to enter Gaza via the Rafah border crossing with Egypt. It remains unclear if the final deal will include a daily six-hour pause in Israeli surveillance flights over northern Gaza.

“Our teams have been working to prepare for that moment. It has been the case since the beginning, as we work on the very difficult humanitarian issues, that a pause in hostilities will really be extremely helpful in actually enabling a surge in humanitarian assistance, which we’ve been working to do. So, we’ll be ready for that,” said the official.

Additional fuel is anticipated to be part of the boosted aid over the agreed-upon pause, though will revert back to current levels at the pause’s conclusion.

“Cessation of hostilities for that period will allow things to happen that have not happened since this war began, including certainty for the NGOs and humanitarian organizations that we work with, albeit over a limited period,” the official added.

The pause could be extended another still-undetermined number of days if both parties agree to a similar 3:1 prisoner/hostage exchange ratio.

Although the deal will limit Israeli operations over southern Gaza, the deal will not permit the significant number of displaced Palestinians from the north to return.

Once Israel approves, it goes back to Qatar before other steps to formally close out the deal. The implementation will not start until about 24 hours after final approval. If a deal is reached Tuesday, implementation will likely go into effect Thursday morning Israel time — including the initial release of hostages.

These, however, may not necessarily be every woman and child held hostage, but “the ones Hamas has been able to confirm in a state of conflict that is ongoing in Gaza, with Hamas under tremendous pressure, that they have identified and that we have confidence will be coming out,” the official said.

The official further noted they have confidence that additional women and children hostages will come out during the pause period. Among the 10 unaccounted for Americans include two women and a child turning four later this week.

The pause will further enable Hamas to locate and determine where hostages are currently being held — a fact communicated to Qatar.

“We also hope that this will lead to full pause and some of the hostilities in the north of the Lebanese border,” the official added.

“We do have various locations where the hostages will be brought out, and that’s pretty well understood.”

“There is a pretty rigid inspection mechanism for everything going into Gaza right now, so I think we have pretty good confidence that [Hamas] will not be able to resupply from the outside during this phase.”