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

Units from Egypt and the International Committee of the Red Cross have been authorized to locate the remains of deceased hostages captured during the October 7th incidents, officials in Israel have verified.

The authorities in Israel announced that the crews have been permitted to operate past the referred to as "demarcation line" in the region controlled by Israeli forces in the Gaza territory.

Hamas has handed over 15 out of 28 hostages who lost their lives under the first phase of a US-brokered truce agreement, which mandates it to hand over all hostage bodies. The organization stated it is now working together with Egyptian authorities.

Donald Trump has warned Hamas to begin returning the bodies "promptly, or the additional nations involved in this great peace will intervene".

An official representative said the crew from Egypt has been authorized to collaborate with the Red Cross to locate the bodies, and would use excavator machines and vehicles for the operation beyond the "demarcation line".

The "yellow line" indicates the border running along the northern, south and eastern of Gaza that Israel pulled back to, as part of the first stage of the truce agreement.

Until now, Israel has not approved the access of these crews.

The Egyptian government, along with Qatari officials and Turkey, is a principal participant of the Trump-brokered peace initiative for Gaza, which was ratified in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh earlier this month.

The development will be welcomed by family members, desperate to provide a dignified funeral.

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

Hamas does not hand over its detainees - alive or deceased - directly to the IDF, but rather to the ICRC, which in turn escorts them through the territory and transfers them to the IDF.

But the arrival of Egyptian excavation teams inside the Gaza Strip is new.

After more than two years of intense bombardment by Israel, the United Nations estimates that as much as eighty-four percent of the area has been reduced to rubble.

Hamas claims it is doing its best to retrieve remains of captives, but it faces difficulty locating them under rubble of structures bombed out by the Israeli military in the region.

It is now coordinating with the Egyptian authorities.

On the weekend, an Israeli government spokesperson stated that the organization knew where the bodies were.

"If Hamas made more of an effort, they would be able to retrieve the bodies of our captives," the spokesperson commented.

Trump posted on his social media account on the weekend that measures would be implemented if the remains of the hostages who died were not returned promptly.

"Some of the remains are hard to reach, but the rest they can return at present and, for some reason, they are not. Perhaps it has do with their disarming," he remarked.

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

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On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Israel would determine which international troops it would allow as part of a proposed multinational contingent in Gaza to help maintain the ceasefire under Trump's plan.

"We are in control of our safety, and we have also made it clear regarding foreign troops that we will decide which units are not acceptable to us, and this is how we function and will continue to operate," he said speaking at the beginning of a cabinet meeting.

On Friday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio indicated "numerous countries" had offered to be part of the force - but added Israeli authorities would have to be comfortable with those taking part.

This appeared to be a allusion to Turkey, amid reports Israeli officials had vetoed the nation's involvement.

It remained unclear, however, how such a force could be stationed without an agreement with Hamas.

Israel launched a armed operation in the territory in response to the 7 October 2023 attack, in which Hamas-led gunmen killed about twelve hundred individuals and took two hundred fifty-one additional persons as captives.

At least sixty-eight thousand five hundred nineteen have been killed in military actions in Gaza from that time, according to the area's health authorities under the group's control.