Egyptian authorities along with International Committee of the Red Cross Join Effort for Captive Bodies in Gaza
Teams from Egypt and the International Committee of the Red Cross have been granted permission to search for the bodies of hostages who perished taken during the 7 October attacks, Israeli authorities have confirmed.
The authorities in Israel stated that the teams have been allowed to search beyond the referred to as "demarcation line" in the area controlled by Israeli forces in Gaza.
The group has transferred fifteen out of 28 hostages who lost their lives under the first phase of a American-mediated ceasefire deal, which mandates it to transfer all hostage bodies. The group said it is now working together with Egyptian authorities.
Donald Trump has cautions Hamas to begin returning the bodies "promptly, or the additional nations involved in this significant peace will take action".
An official representative said the Egyptian team has been authorized to work with the ICRC to locate the bodies, and would use digging equipment and vehicles for the operation beyond the "demarcation line".
The "yellow line" indicates the border running along the north, southern and eastern of Gaza that Israeli forces withdrew to, as part of the first stage of the truce agreement.
Until now, Israel has not authorized the entry of such teams.
The Egyptian government, along with Qatar and Turkey, is a key signatory of the mediated by Trump peace initiative for Gaza, which was signed in the coastal city of Sharm el-Sheikh earlier this month.
The development will be greeted positively by relatives, eager to provide a proper burial.
The ICRC has already been deeply engaged in the repatriation of captives.
Hamas does not hand over its captives - living or deceased - directly to the IDF, but instead to the ICRC, which in turn escorts them through the territory and transfers them to the IDF.
But the arrival of digging crews from Egypt inside the Gaza territory is new.
After more than two years of heavy shelling by Israel, the United Nations calculates that as much as 84% of the area has been reduced to rubble.
The group says it is doing its best to retrieve remains of captives, but it faces difficulty locating them under debris of structures bombed out by the IDF in the region.
It is now coordinating with the Egyptian authorities.
On the weekend, an official representative stated that Hamas was aware of where the remains were.
"If the group put in greater work, they would be able to retrieve the remains of our captives," the spokesperson commented.
The former president posted on his Truth Social platform on Saturday that measures would be implemented if the bodies of the hostages who died were not returned quickly.
"Some of the remains are difficult to access, but the rest they can return at present and, for unknown reasons, they are not. Maybe it has do with their disarming," he remarked.
He continued: "We will observe what they accomplish over the coming two days. I am monitoring the situation very closely."
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On the weekend, the Israeli leader announced Israel would determine which foreign forces it would permit as part of a planned multinational contingent in the region to help maintain the truce under Trump's plan.
"We are in command of our security, and we have also made it clear regarding international forces that Israel will determine which units are unacceptable to us, and this is how we function and will continue to operate," he said speaking at the start of a cabinet meeting.
On Friday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio indicated "a lot of nations" had volunteered to be involved in the contingent - but noted Israeli authorities would have to be satisfied with participants.
This appeared to be a reference to the Turkish government, amid reports Israel had rejected the country's participation.
It was still uncertain, however, how such a force could be deployed without an understanding with Hamas.
The Israeli military launched a military campaign in Gaza in following the 7 October 2023 attack, in which Hamas-led gunmen took the lives of about twelve hundred people and took two hundred fifty-one additional persons as hostages.
No fewer than 68,519 have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since then, according to the territory's health authorities under the group's control.