Egypt along with International Committee of the Red Cross Join Search for Captive Remains in Gaza Strip
Units from Egypt and the ICRC have been granted permission to locate the remains of deceased hostages taken during the 7 October attacks, officials in Israel have verified.
The authorities in Israel stated that the teams have been permitted to operate past the referred to as "yellow line" in the area controlled by military personnel in Gaza.
Hamas has handed over fifteen out of 28 hostages who lost their lives under the initial stage of a US-brokered truce agreement, which mandates it to transfer all hostage bodies. The group said it is now working together with officials in Egypt.
The former US president has cautions the organization to begin returning the bodies "quickly, or the other countries involved in this significant peace will take action".
An official representative said the Egyptian team has been permitted to collaborate with the ICRC to locate the remains, and would use excavator machines and trucks for the search beyond the "yellow line".
The "demarcation line" indicates the border running along the northern, south and eastern of the Gaza territory that Israeli forces withdrew to, as part of the first stage of the ceasefire deal.
Until now, Israel has not approved the access of such teams.
Egypt, along with Qatari officials and Turkish authorities, is a key signatory of the mediated by Trump Gaza peace plan, which was signed in the coastal city of Sharm el-Sheikh earlier this month.
The news will be greeted positively by relatives, desperate to give them a proper burial.
The International Committee of the Red Cross has already been heavily involved in the repatriation of hostages.
Hamas does not hand over its captives - living or deceased - straight 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 two years of intense bombardment by Israeli forces, the UN estimates that as much as eighty-four percent of the territory has been reduced to rubble.
Hamas claims it is making every effort to recover remains of captives, but it encounters challenges finding them under rubble of buildings destroyed by the IDF in the region.
It is now working in coordination with the officials in Egypt.
On Sunday, an Israeli government spokesperson stated that Hamas knew where the remains were.
"If the group put in greater work, they would be able to retrieve the bodies of our hostages," the spokesperson said.
Trump shared on his Truth Social platform on the weekend that action would be implemented if the remains of the hostages who died were not handed back quickly.
"A portion of the bodies are difficult to access, but others they can hand over now and, for some reason, they are not. Perhaps it has to do with their demilitarization," he remarked.
Trump 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 Israel would decide which international troops it would allow as part of a proposed international force 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 decide which units are not acceptable to us, and this is how we operate and will continue to operate," he said speaking at the start of a government session.
On the end of the week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said "a lot of nations" had offered to be part of the force - but noted Israel would have to be satisfied with participants.
This appeared to be a allusion to Turkey, amid reports Israel had rejected the nation's participation.
It was still uncertain, however, how this contingent could be stationed without an agreement with the organization.
Israel launched a armed operation in the territory in following the incidents of October 7th, in which militants associated with the group killed about 1,200 individuals and took 251 additional persons as hostages.
At least sixty-eight thousand five hundred nineteen have been killed in military actions in the region from that time, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.