Egypt along with International Committee of the Red Cross Participate in Effort for Hostage Remains in Gaza
Teams from Egyptian authorities and the ICRC have been granted permission to locate the bodies of hostages who perished captured during the October 7th incidents, officials in Israel have verified.
The authorities in Israel stated that the crews have been permitted to search beyond the so-called "demarcation line" in the region under the control of military personnel in the Gaza territory.
The group has handed over 15 out of 28 hostages who lost their lives under the first phase of a US-brokered truce agreement, which mandates it to transfer all remains of captives. The organization stated it is now working together with Egyptian authorities.
Donald Trump has warned the organization to start return the remains "quickly, or the other countries involved in this significant peace will intervene".
An Israeli spokesperson indicated the crew from Egypt has been permitted to work with the ICRC to find the remains, and would use digging equipment and trucks for the search beyond the "yellow line".
The "yellow line" marks the border running along the northern, southern and east of Gaza that Israel withdrew to, as part of the first stage of the ceasefire deal.
Until now, Israeli authorities has not authorized the entry of such teams.
Egypt, along with Qatari officials and Turkey, is a principal participant of the Trump-brokered peace initiative for Gaza, which was signed in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh in recent weeks.
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 repatriation of hostages.
The organization does not transfer its detainees - alive or deceased - directly to the IDF, but rather to the Red Cross, which in turn accompanies them through the territory and hands them on to the IDF.
But the arrival of digging crews from Egypt inside the Gaza Strip is new.
After more than 24 months of heavy shelling by Israeli forces, the United Nations estimates that as much as eighty-four percent of the area has been destroyed completely.
The group says it is making every effort to retrieve remains of captives, but it faces difficulty finding them under rubble of buildings destroyed by the IDF in Gaza.
It is now coordinating with the Egyptian authorities.
On Sunday, an official representative stated that the organization was aware of where the bodies were.
"If the group made more of an effort, they would be able to retrieve the remains of our hostages," the spokesperson commented.
Trump shared on his Truth Social platform on the weekend that action would be implemented if the bodies of the hostages who died were not handed back promptly.
"Some of the remains are difficult to access, but the rest they can hand over now and, for some reason, they are not. Perhaps it has to do with their demilitarization," he said.
Trump continued: "We will observe what they accomplish over the next 48 hours. I am watching this with great attention."
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On the weekend, the Israeli leader said Israel would decide which foreign forces it would permit as part of a planned multinational contingent in Gaza to help secure the ceasefire under the former president's initiative.
"We are in command of our security, and we have also made it clear regarding foreign troops that we will determine which units are not acceptable to us, and this is how we operate and will continue to operate," he said talking at the start of a cabinet meeting.
On Friday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio indicated "a lot of nations" had volunteered to be involved in the force - but noted Israeli authorities would have to be comfortable with those taking part.
This appeared to be a allusion to the Turkish government, amid reports Israel had rejected the country's involvement.
It was still uncertain, however, how this contingent could be stationed without an agreement 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 1,200 people and took two hundred fifty-one additional persons as captives.
At least sixty-eight thousand five hundred nineteen have been lost their lives in Israeli attacks in Gaza since then, according to the territory's health authorities under the group's control.