Egyptian authorities and International Committee of the Red Cross Join Search for Captive Remains in Gaza
Teams from Egyptian authorities and the International Committee of the Red Cross have been authorized to search for the bodies of deceased hostages captured during the October 7th incidents, Israeli authorities have verified.
The authorities in Israel announced that the crews have been allowed to operate past the referred to as "yellow line" in the area under the control of military personnel 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 requires it to transfer all hostage bodies. The organization said it is now working together with Egyptian authorities.
Donald Trump has warned Hamas to start return the bodies "promptly, or the other countries participating in this great peace will intervene".
An Israeli spokesperson indicated the Egyptian team has been authorized to work with the Red Cross to locate the remains, and would use digging equipment and trucks for the operation beyond the "demarcation line".
The "demarcation line" marks the border running along the north, southern and east of Gaza that Israel pulled back to, as part of the initial phase of the ceasefire deal.
Previously, Israel has not approved the entry of these crews.
Egypt, along with Qatari officials and Turkey, is a principal participant of the mediated by Trump peace initiative for Gaza, which was signed in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh earlier this month.
The development will be greeted positively by family members, eager to give them a dignified funeral.
The ICRC has already been heavily involved in the return of captives.
Hamas does not transfer its detainees - living or deceased - directly to the Israel Defense Forces, but rather to the ICRC, which in turn accompanies them through Gaza and transfers them to the Israeli military.
But the arrival of Egyptian excavation teams inside the Gaza Strip is a recent development.
After more than two years of intense bombardment by Israel, the United Nations estimates that as much as eighty-four percent of the territory has been destroyed completely.
Hamas says it is doing its best to retrieve hostage bodies, but it faces difficulty locating them under debris of structures bombed out by the Israeli military in the region.
It is now working in coordination with the Egyptian authorities.
On Sunday, an Israeli government spokesperson stated that the organization knew where the bodies were.
"If Hamas made more of an effort, they would be able to recover the remains of our captives," the spokesperson said.
Trump posted on his Truth Social platform on the weekend that measures would be implemented if the bodies of the hostages who died were not returned quickly.
"Some of the bodies are hard to reach, but others they can hand over at present and, for some reason, they are not. Maybe it has do with their disarming," he said.
He added: "We will observe what they do over the next 48 hours. I am monitoring the situation with great attention."
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On the weekend, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would decide which international troops it would permit as part of a proposed international force in Gaza to help maintain the truce under Trump's plan.
"We are in command of our security, and we have also made it clear regarding foreign troops that Israel will determine which units are unacceptable to us, and this is how we function and will proceed," he said talking at the start of a government session.
On the end of the week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said "a lot of nations" had volunteered to be part of the force - but added Israel would have to be satisfied with those taking part.
This seemed like a reference to Turkey, amid accounts Israel had rejected the country's participation.
It remained unclear, however, how such a force could be deployed without an understanding with Hamas.
Israel initiated a armed operation in Gaza in response to the incidents of October 7th, in which militants associated with the group took the lives of about twelve hundred individuals and took two hundred fifty-one others as captives.
No fewer than 68,519 have been killed in military actions in the region from that time, according to the area's health authorities under the group's control.