Egyptian authorities along with International Committee of the Red Cross Participate in Effort for Hostage Remains in Gaza
Teams from Egypt and the ICRC have been authorized to search for the remains of hostages who perished captured during the October 7th incidents, officials in Israel have verified.
The authorities in Israel announced that the crews have been allowed to operate beyond the referred to as "demarcation line" in the region under the control of Israeli forces in Gaza.
The group has transferred 15 out of twenty-eight hostages who lost their lives under the first phase of a US-brokered truce agreement, which mandates it to hand over all remains of captives. The organization said it is now working together with Egyptian authorities.
Donald Trump has cautions Hamas to start return the remains "promptly, or the additional nations participating in this great peace will intervene".
An Israeli spokesperson said the Egyptian team has been permitted to work with the Red Cross to locate the bodies, and would use excavator machines and trucks for the search beyond the "demarcation line".
The "yellow line" indicates the boundary running along the northern, south and east of the Gaza territory that Israel withdrew to, as part of the first stage of the ceasefire deal.
Previously, Israel has not approved the access of these crews.
Egypt, along with Qatar and Turkey, is a key signatory of the Trump-brokered Gaza peace plan, which was ratified in the Egyptian resort of the resort town earlier this month.
The development will be welcomed by family members, desperate to provide a proper burial.
The International Committee of the Red Cross has already been deeply engaged in the return of hostages.
Hamas does not hand over its captives - living or deceased - straight to the Israel Defense Forces, but instead to the ICRC, which in turn escorts them through the territory and transfers them to the IDF.
But the entry of digging crews from Egypt inside the Gaza territory is new.
After more than 24 months of intense bombardment by Israel, the UN calculates that as much as 84% of the territory has been destroyed completely.
Hamas claims it is doing its best to recover hostage bodies, but it faces difficulty locating them under rubble of structures destroyed by the Israeli military in the region.
It is now coordinating with the Egyptian authorities.
On Sunday, an Israeli government spokesperson stated that Hamas knew where the remains were.
"If the group made more of an effort, they would be able to recover the remains of our captives," the representative said.
The former president posted on his Truth Social platform on the weekend that measures would be taken if the bodies of the hostages who died were not returned promptly.
"A portion of the bodies are hard to reach, but the rest they can return at present and, for unknown reasons, they are not. Maybe it has to do with their demilitarization," he said.
Trump continued: "Let's see what they accomplish over the coming two days. I am watching this very closely."
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On the weekend, the Israeli leader said Israel would decide which international troops it would permit as part of a planned multinational contingent in the region to help secure the ceasefire under the former president's initiative.
"We are in command of our safety, 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 operate and will proceed," he declared talking at the beginning of a government session.
On Friday, the American diplomat indicated "a lot of nations" had offered to be involved in the contingent - but noted Israeli authorities would have to be comfortable with those taking part.
This appeared to be a reference to the Turkish government, amid reports Israel had vetoed the country's involvement.
It remained unclear, however, how this contingent could be stationed without an agreement with the organization.
Israel launched a armed operation in the territory in response to the incidents of October 7th, in which Hamas-led gunmen killed about 1,200 people and captured two hundred fifty-one others as hostages.
No fewer than sixty-eight thousand five hundred nineteen have been killed in military actions in the region since then, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.