🔗 Share this article

Units from Egyptian authorities and the International Committee of the Red Cross have been authorized to search for the bodies of hostages who perished taken during the October 7th incidents, officials in Israel have verified.

The Israeli government stated that the teams have been permitted to operate past the so-called "demarcation line" in the area under the control of military personnel in the Gaza territory.

The group has transferred fifteen out of 28 hostages who lost their lives under the initial stage of a American-mediated ceasefire deal, which mandates it to hand over all remains of captives. The organization stated it is now working together with Egyptian authorities.

The former US president has cautions Hamas to begin returning the remains "promptly, or the additional nations involved in this significant peace will intervene".

An official representative said the Egyptian team has been permitted to work with the Red Cross to locate the remains, and would use digging equipment and trucks for the operation past the "yellow line".

The "yellow line" indicates the boundary running along the north, southern and eastern of Gaza that Israeli forces pulled back to, as part of the first stage of the ceasefire deal.

Previously, Israeli authorities has not approved the entry of these crews.

Egypt, along with Qatar and Turkey, is a principal participant of the Trump-brokered peace initiative for Gaza, which was ratified in the Egyptian resort of the resort town in recent weeks.

The development will be welcomed by family members, desperate to give them a dignified funeral.

The ICRC has already been heavily involved in the repatriation of hostages.

The organization does not hand over its detainees - alive or deceased - straight to the IDF, but rather to the ICRC, which in turn accompanies them through Gaza and hands them on to the Israeli military.

But the arrival of digging crews from Egypt inside the Gaza Strip is a recent development.

After more than 24 months of intense bombardment by Israel, the United Nations calculates that as much as eighty-four percent of the territory has been reduced to rubble.

The group says it is making every effort to recover remains of captives, but it faces difficulty locating them under debris of structures bombed out by the Israeli military in Gaza.

It is now working in coordination with the Egyptian authorities.

On Sunday, an Israeli government spokesperson said that the organization was aware of where the bodies were.

"If Hamas put in greater work, they would be able to retrieve the bodies of our captives," the spokesperson said.

The former president shared on his social media account on Saturday that action would be implemented if the bodies of the deceased hostages were not handed back promptly.

"Some of the remains are hard to reach, but others they can hand over at present and, for unknown reasons, they are not. Perhaps it has to do with their disarming," he said.

He added: "We will observe what they accomplish over the next 48 hours. I am watching this with great attention."

• Palestinian minors dying as they await Israel to enable relocations
• The US Secretary of State states lots of countries willing to participate in the region's peacekeeping unit
• Recent photographs show demarcation zone further into Gaza than expected

On Sunday, the Israeli leader said the country would determine which foreign forces it would allow as part of a proposed multinational contingent in the region to help secure the truce under Trump's plan.

"We are in command of our safety, and we have also stated explicitly regarding foreign troops that Israel will determine which units are unacceptable to us, and this is how we function and will continue to operate," he declared talking at the start of a government session.

On Friday, the American diplomat indicated "numerous 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 allusion to the Turkish government, amid accounts Israel had rejected the nation's involvement.

It remained unclear, however, how this contingent could be stationed without an understanding with Hamas.

The Israeli military launched a military campaign in the territory in following the incidents of October 7th, in which Hamas-led gunmen killed about twelve hundred people and captured two hundred fifty-one additional persons as hostages.

No fewer than 68,519 have been killed in military actions in the region since then, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.