Egyptian authorities along with Red Cross Join Search for Hostage Bodies in Gaza Strip
Units from Egyptian authorities and the International Committee of the Red Cross have been authorized to search for the remains of deceased hostages taken during the 7 October attacks, officials in Israel have confirmed.
The authorities in Israel announced that the teams have been allowed to operate beyond the referred to as "demarcation line" in the area under the control of military personnel in the Gaza territory.
The group has handed over fifteen out of twenty-eight deceased Israeli hostages under the initial stage of a American-mediated truce agreement, which mandates it to hand over all remains of captives. The group stated it is now working together with Egyptian authorities.
Donald Trump has cautions Hamas to begin returning the bodies "promptly, or the other countries participating in this great peace will take action".
An official representative said the crew from Egypt has been authorized to work with the Red Cross to find the remains, and would use digging equipment and trucks for the search beyond the "demarcation line".
The "demarcation line" indicates the boundary running along the northern, south and east of Gaza that Israel pulled back to, as part of the initial phase of the ceasefire deal.
Previously, Israeli authorities has not authorized the access of these crews.
The Egyptian government, along with Qatar and Turkey, is a key signatory of the mediated by Trump Gaza peace plan, which was ratified in the Egyptian resort of the resort town in recent weeks.
The news will be greeted positively by relatives, desperate to give them a dignified funeral.
The ICRC has already been deeply engaged in the repatriation of captives.
The organization does not hand over its detainees - living or deceased - directly to the Israel Defense Forces, but instead to the ICRC, which in turn accompanies them through Gaza and hands them on to the Israeli military.
But the arrival of Egyptian excavation teams inside the Gaza Strip is a recent development.
After more than two years of heavy shelling by Israeli forces, the United Nations calculates that as much as 84% of the territory has been destroyed completely.
The group claims it is making every effort to retrieve remains of captives, but it faces difficulty locating them under rubble of buildings bombed out by the IDF in the region.
It is now working in coordination with the officials in Egypt.
On the weekend, an Israeli government spokesperson said that Hamas was aware of where the bodies were.
"If the group put in greater work, they would be able to retrieve the bodies of our captives," the representative 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 returned promptly.
"Some of the bodies are difficult to access, 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 continued: "We will observe what they accomplish over the coming two days. I am monitoring the situation very closely."
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On the weekend, the Israeli leader announced the country would determine which foreign forces it would permit as part of a planned multinational contingent in the region to help secure the ceasefire under Trump's plan.
"We are in control of our security, and we have also stated explicitly regarding foreign troops that we will decide which forces are unacceptable to us, and this is how we operate and will proceed," he said speaking at the start of a government session.
On the end of the week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio indicated "a lot of nations" had offered to be involved in the force - but added Israel would have to be satisfied with those taking part.
This appeared to be a reference to the Turkish government, amid accounts Israeli officials had rejected the country's involvement.
It remained unclear, however, how this contingent could be stationed without an agreement with the organization.
The Israeli military initiated a armed operation in Gaza in following the incidents of October 7th, in which Hamas-led gunmen killed about twelve hundred individuals and captured 251 additional persons as captives.
At least sixty-eight thousand five hundred nineteen have been lost their lives in military actions in the region since then, according to the area's health authorities under the group's control.