Egypt along with International Committee of the Red Cross Participate in Search for Captive Remains in Gaza Strip
Units from Egyptian authorities and the ICRC have been granted permission to search for the remains of deceased hostages captured during the October 7th incidents, Israeli authorities have verified.
The authorities in Israel announced that the teams have been allowed to operate past the referred to as "yellow line" in the region under the control of Israeli forces in the Gaza territory.
Hamas has transferred fifteen out of twenty-eight hostages who lost their lives under the initial stage of a US-brokered ceasefire deal, which mandates it to hand over all remains of captives. The organization said it is now coordinating with Egyptian authorities.
Donald Trump has cautions Hamas to start return the bodies "quickly, or the other countries participating in this great peace will take action".
An official representative said the Egyptian team has been permitted to work with the Red Cross to locate the remains, and would use excavator machines and trucks for the search beyond the "yellow line".
The "yellow line" marks the boundary running along the north, south and east of Gaza that Israel withdrew to, as part of the initial phase of the truce agreement.
Until now, Israeli authorities has not approved the access of such teams.
The Egyptian government, along with Qatari officials and Turkish authorities, is a key signatory of the mediated by Trump Gaza peace plan, which was ratified in the coastal city of Sharm el-Sheikh earlier this month.
The development will be greeted positively by family members, eager to give them a proper burial.
The ICRC has already been heavily involved in the return of captives.
Hamas does not hand over its detainees - alive or deceased - directly to the Israel Defense Forces, but rather to the Red Cross, which in turn escorts them through Gaza and transfers them to the Israeli military.
But the entry of Egyptian excavation teams inside the Gaza territory is a recent development.
After more than 24 months of intense bombardment by Israeli forces, the UN estimates that as much as 84% of the territory has been reduced to rubble.
Hamas says it is doing its best to retrieve hostage bodies, but it faces difficulty finding them under debris of buildings bombed out by the IDF in Gaza.
It is now coordinating with the officials in Egypt.
On the weekend, an Israeli government spokesperson stated that Hamas was aware of where the remains were.
"If Hamas put in greater work, they would be able to recover the remains of our captives," the representative said.
Trump shared on his social media account on Saturday that action would be taken if the remains of the hostages who died were not returned quickly.
"A portion of the bodies are difficult to access, but others they can return now and, for some reason, they are not. Perhaps it has to do with their demilitarization," he remarked.
Trump continued: "We will observe what they accomplish over the coming two days. I am watching this very closely."
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On the weekend, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the country would determine which international troops it would permit as part of a planned multinational contingent in Gaza to help secure the truce under the former president's initiative.
"We are in command of our safety, and we have also made it clear regarding international forces that Israel will determine which forces are unacceptable to us, and this is how we operate and will proceed," he said speaking at the beginning of a government session.
On the end of the week, the American diplomat indicated "numerous nations" had offered to be part of the force - but noted Israel would have to be comfortable with those taking part.
This appeared to be a allusion to Turkey, amid reports Israeli officials had rejected the country's involvement.
It remained unclear, however, how this contingent could be stationed without an agreement with Hamas.
The Israeli military initiated a military campaign in Gaza in response to the incidents of October 7th, in which Hamas-led gunmen took the lives of about twelve hundred individuals and took two hundred fifty-one additional persons as hostages.
At least 68,519 have been lost their lives in Israeli attacks in the region since then, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.
