Egyptian authorities along with International Committee of the Red Cross Join Effort for Captive Remains in Gaza Strip
Teams from Egypt and the International Committee of the Red Cross have been granted permission to locate the remains of hostages who perished taken during the 7 October attacks, Israeli authorities have verified.
The Israeli government announced that the teams have been permitted to operate past the so-called "yellow line" in the region under the control of Israeli forces in the Gaza territory.
The group has transferred fifteen out of twenty-eight hostages who lost their lives under the first phase of a US-brokered truce agreement, which requires it to transfer all remains of captives. The organization stated it is now coordinating with Egyptian authorities.
Donald Trump has warned the organization to start return the remains "promptly, or the other countries involved in this significant peace will intervene".
An official representative indicated the Egyptian team has been permitted to collaborate with the ICRC to locate the remains, and would use excavator machines and vehicles for the operation beyond the "yellow line".
The "demarcation line" marks 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.
Until now, Israel has not approved the access of these crews.
Egypt, along with Qatari officials and Turkish authorities, is a key signatory of the Trump-brokered Gaza peace plan, which was ratified in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh in recent weeks.
The news will be greeted positively by relatives, eager to give them a dignified funeral.
The ICRC has already been heavily involved in the return of captives.
The organization does not hand over its detainees - living or deceased - directly to the IDF, but instead to the ICRC, which in turn escorts them through Gaza and transfers them to the IDF.
But the entry of Egyptian excavation teams inside the Gaza territory is new.
After more than 24 months of heavy shelling by Israel, the UN calculates that as much as eighty-four percent of the territory has been destroyed completely.
The group claims it is doing its best to retrieve hostage bodies, but it encounters challenges locating them under debris of buildings bombed out by the Israeli military in the region.
It is now coordinating with the Egyptian authorities.
On the weekend, an official representative said that Hamas knew where the bodies were.
"If Hamas put in greater work, they would be able to recover the remains of our captives," the spokesperson commented.
The former president posted on his social media account on the weekend that measures would be taken if the remains of the deceased hostages were not returned promptly.
"A portion of the remains are hard to reach, but the rest they can return at present and, for unknown reasons, they are not. Perhaps it has do with their disarming," he said.
He continued: "We will observe what they do over the next 48 hours. I am watching this with great attention."
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On the weekend, the Israeli leader announced Israel would decide which foreign forces it would permit as part of a proposed international force in Gaza to help maintain the ceasefire under the former president's initiative.
"We are in control of our security, and we have also stated explicitly regarding foreign troops that we will decide which units are unacceptable to us, and this is how we operate and will proceed," he declared speaking at the start of a government session.
On Friday, the American diplomat indicated "numerous countries" had offered to be part of the contingent - but noted Israeli authorities would have to be comfortable with participants.
This appeared to be a allusion to Turkey, amid reports Israel had rejected the nation's involvement.
It was still uncertain, however, how this contingent could be deployed without an understanding with the organization.
The Israeli military initiated a military campaign in the territory in following the 7 October 2023 attack, in which Hamas-led gunmen killed about twelve hundred people and took 251 additional persons as hostages.
No fewer than 68,519 have been lost their lives in military actions in Gaza since then, according to the territory's health authorities under the group's control.