Egypt and 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 bodies of hostages who perished taken during the October 7th incidents, Israeli authorities have confirmed.
The Israeli government stated that the teams have been permitted to search beyond the so-called "yellow line" in the region controlled by military personnel in Gaza.
The group has handed over 15 out of 28 hostages who lost their lives under the initial stage of a US-brokered truce agreement, which requires it to transfer all remains of captives. The group said it is now working together with officials in Egypt.
The former US president has cautions the organization to begin returning the remains "promptly, or the additional nations participating in this great peace will take action".
An official representative said the crew from Egypt has been authorized to work with the ICRC to find the bodies, and would use excavator machines and vehicles for the search beyond the "demarcation line".
The "demarcation line" marks the boundary running along the north, south and eastern of the Gaza territory that Israeli forces pulled back to, as part of the initial phase of the truce agreement.
Previously, Israeli authorities has not authorized the access of these crews.
Egypt, along with Qatar and Turkey, is a principal participant of the Trump-brokered Gaza peace plan, which was signed in the coastal city of the resort town in recent weeks.
The news will be welcomed by relatives, desperate to provide a dignified funeral.
The ICRC has already been heavily involved in the repatriation of hostages.
The organization does not hand over its detainees - living or deceased - straight to the IDF, but rather to the Red Cross, which in turn escorts them through the territory and transfers them to the Israeli military.
But the entry of Egyptian excavation teams inside the Gaza territory is new.
After more than two years of intense bombardment by Israel, the UN calculates that as much as eighty-four percent of the territory has been destroyed completely.
Hamas claims it is doing its best to recover hostage bodies, 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 Egyptian authorities.
On Sunday, an official representative stated that the organization knew where the bodies were.
"If Hamas put in greater work, they would be able to retrieve the remains of our captives," the spokesperson said.
Trump shared on his social media account on the weekend that action would be implemented if the bodies of the hostages who died were not handed back quickly.
"A portion of the remains are difficult to access, but the rest they can hand over now and, for unknown reasons, they are not. Maybe it has to do with their demilitarization," he remarked.
He added: "We will observe what they accomplish over the next 48 hours. I am watching this with great attention."
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On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Israel would decide which foreign forces it would allow as part of a proposed international force in Gaza to help maintain the ceasefire under the former president's initiative.
"We are in command of our safety, and we have also stated explicitly regarding foreign troops that Israel will decide which forces are not acceptable to us, and this is how we function and will proceed," he declared talking 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 volunteered to be part of the force - but noted Israel would have to be comfortable with those taking part.
This appeared to be a reference to Turkey, amid reports Israel had rejected the country's involvement.
It was still uncertain, however, how such a force could be stationed without an understanding with Hamas.
The Israeli military launched a armed operation in the territory in following the 7 October 2023 attack, in which Hamas-led gunmen took the lives of about twelve hundred people and took 251 additional persons as captives.
No fewer than sixty-eight thousand five hundred nineteen have been lost their lives in Israeli attacks in Gaza since then, according to the area's Hamas-run health ministry.
