Egyptian authorities along with Red Cross Join Search for Hostage Remains in Gaza

Teams from Egyptian authorities and the International Committee of the Red Cross 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 announced that the crews have been permitted to search beyond the referred to as "demarcation line" in the region controlled by Israeli forces in Gaza.

The group has transferred 15 out of 28 deceased Israeli hostages under the first phase of a US-brokered truce agreement, which requires it to transfer all hostage bodies. The group said it is now coordinating with officials in Egypt.

The former US president has warned Hamas to begin returning the remains "promptly, or the other countries involved in this great peace will take action".

An official representative said the crew from Egypt has been permitted to work with the Red Cross to locate the remains, and would use excavator machines and trucks for the operation past the "demarcation line".

The "yellow line" marks the border running along the north, south and east of Gaza that Israeli forces pulled back to, as part of the first stage of the truce agreement.

Until now, Israeli authorities has not authorized the entry of these crews.

The Egyptian government, along with Qatar and Turkey, is a principal participant of the mediated by Trump peace initiative for Gaza, which was signed in the coastal city of the resort town in recent weeks.

The news will be greeted positively by family members, eager to give them a proper burial.

The ICRC has already been deeply engaged in the repatriation of captives.

Hamas does not hand over its captives - living or deceased - directly to the IDF, but rather to the Red Cross, which in turn escorts them through Gaza and transfers them to the Israeli military.

But the entry of Egyptian excavation teams inside the Gaza Strip is a recent development.

After more than 24 months 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 says it is making every effort to retrieve hostage bodies, but it encounters challenges locating them under debris of buildings bombed out by the IDF in Gaza.

It is now coordinating with the Egyptian authorities.

On Sunday, an official representative said that Hamas was aware of where the bodies were.

"If Hamas put in greater work, they would be able to retrieve the remains of our captives," the spokesperson commented.

Trump posted on his Truth Social platform on Saturday that measures would be implemented if the bodies of the deceased hostages were not handed back quickly.

"A portion of the remains are difficult to access, but others they can return at present and, for some reason, they are not. Maybe it has do with their demilitarization," he remarked.

Trump continued: "Let's see what they accomplish over the coming two days. I am monitoring the situation with great attention."

• Palestinian children dying as they wait for Israel to permit evacuations
• Rubio states lots of countries willing to participate in Gaza peacekeeping unit
• New images reveal demarcation zone deeper into Gaza than anticipated

On the weekend, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Israel would decide which international troops it would permit as part of a planned multinational contingent in the region to help secure the truce under Trump's plan.

"We are in control of our security, and we have also made it clear regarding international forces that Israel will determine which forces are not acceptable to us, and this is how we function 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 indicated "numerous nations" had offered to be involved in the force - but noted Israeli authorities would have to be satisfied with participants.

This appeared to be a allusion to the Turkish government, amid accounts Israel had vetoed the country's participation.

It was still uncertain, however, how such a force could be deployed without an agreement with Hamas.

Israel launched a armed operation in Gaza in response to the 7 October 2023 attack, in which Hamas-led gunmen took the lives of about twelve hundred people and took two hundred fifty-one others as hostages.

No fewer than 68,519 have been lost their lives in military actions in the region since then, according to the area's Hamas-run health ministry.