Egyptian authorities along with Red Cross Participate in Search for Captive Remains in Gaza Strip
Teams from Egyptian authorities and the ICRC have been authorized to locate the remains of deceased hostages taken during the 7 October attacks, officials in Israel have verified.
The authorities in Israel announced that the teams have been permitted to search beyond the referred to as "yellow line" in the region controlled by Israeli forces in Gaza.
The group has transferred 15 out of 28 deceased Israeli hostages under the initial stage of a US-brokered truce agreement, which mandates it to hand over all remains of captives. The group said it is now coordinating with officials in Egypt.
The former US president has warned Hamas to begin returning the remains "promptly, or the other countries involved in this great peace will intervene".
An Israeli spokesperson indicated the crew from Egypt has been permitted to collaborate with the ICRC to locate the bodies, and would use excavator machines and trucks for the search past the "demarcation line".
The "yellow line" marks the boundary running along the northern, south and eastern of Gaza that Israel pulled back to, as part of the first stage of the ceasefire deal.
Previously, Israel has not authorized the access of such teams.
The Egyptian government, along with Qatar 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 in recent weeks.
The news will be greeted positively by family members, desperate to provide a proper burial.
The ICRC has already been heavily involved in the repatriation of captives.
Hamas does not hand over its captives - living or deceased - directly to the Israel Defense Forces, but rather to the ICRC, which in turn accompanies them through the territory and hands them on to the IDF.
But the entry of digging crews from Egypt inside the Gaza Strip is a recent development.
After more than 24 months of heavy shelling by Israel, the United Nations calculates that as much as 84% of the area has been reduced to rubble.
The group claims it is making every effort to recover hostage bodies, but it faces difficulty locating them under rubble of buildings destroyed by the IDF in Gaza.
It is now coordinating with the Egyptian authorities.
On the weekend, an Israeli government spokesperson said that Hamas knew where the bodies were.
"If the group made more of an effort, they would be able to retrieve the bodies of our captives," the representative said.
The former president posted on his social media account on Saturday that measures would be taken if the bodies of the deceased hostages were not handed back quickly.
"Some of the remains are hard to reach, but others they can hand over now and, for unknown reasons, they are not. Maybe it has do with their disarming," he said.
He added: "Let's see what they accomplish over the coming two days. I am monitoring the situation with great attention."
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On the weekend, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Israel would decide which international troops it would allow as part of a proposed multinational contingent in the region to help maintain the truce under Trump's plan.
"We are in command of our safety, and we have also stated explicitly regarding foreign troops that we will decide which units are not acceptable to us, and this is how we function and will proceed," he said speaking at the beginning of a cabinet meeting.
On the end of the week, the American diplomat indicated "a lot of countries" had volunteered to be part of the force - but noted Israeli authorities would have to be satisfied with participants.
This seemed like a reference to Turkey, amid reports Israeli officials had vetoed the nation's participation.
It remained unclear, however, how this contingent could be deployed without an agreement with the organization.
The Israeli military initiated a armed operation in Gaza in following the incidents of October 7th, in which militants associated with the group took the lives of about twelve hundred individuals and captured two hundred fifty-one additional persons as captives.
At least sixty-eight thousand five hundred nineteen have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since then, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.