🔗 Share this article

Units from Egypt and the International Committee of the Red Cross have been granted permission to search for the bodies of deceased hostages captured during the 7 October attacks, officials in Israel have verified.

The Israeli government announced that the teams have been allowed to operate beyond the so-called "yellow line" in the region controlled by military personnel in Gaza.

Hamas has handed over 15 out of 28 deceased Israeli hostages under the first phase of a American-mediated truce agreement, which mandates it to transfer all hostage bodies. The group stated it is now working together with Egyptian authorities.

The former US president has warned the organization to begin returning the bodies "quickly, or the additional nations involved in this significant peace will take action".

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

The "yellow line" marks the border running along the north, south and east of the Gaza territory that Israel pulled back to, as part of the initial phase of the truce agreement.

Until now, Israeli authorities has not approved the entry of such teams.

The Egyptian government, 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 in recent weeks.

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

The ICRC has already been heavily involved in the return of captives.

Hamas does not transfer its captives - living or deceased - directly to the IDF, but rather to the Red Cross, which in turn accompanies them through Gaza and hands them on to the IDF.

But the entry of Egyptian excavation teams inside the Gaza territory is new.

After more than two years of intense bombardment by Israel, the United Nations calculates that as much as 84% of the territory has been reduced to rubble.

Hamas claims it is doing its best to retrieve hostage bodies, but it faces difficulty locating them under rubble of structures destroyed by the IDF in the region.

It is now working in coordination with the Egyptian authorities.

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

"If the group put in greater work, they would be able to retrieve the bodies of our hostages," the spokesperson said.

The former president posted on his social media account on Saturday that measures would be implemented if the bodies of the hostages who died were not returned quickly.

"Some of the bodies are hard to reach, but the rest they can hand over now and, for some reason, they are not. Maybe it has do with their disarming," he said.

He added: "Let's see what they accomplish over the coming two days. I am monitoring the situation very closely."

• Palestinian children losing their lives as they await Israel to permit evacuations
• The US Secretary of State says many countries prepared to join the region's peacekeeping unit
• New images show demarcation zone deeper into the territory than expected

On the weekend, 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 secure the ceasefire under Trump's plan.

"We are in command of our security, and we have also stated explicitly regarding foreign troops that Israel will determine which forces are not acceptable to us, and this is how we function and will continue to operate," he said talking at the beginning of a cabinet meeting.

On the end of the week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said "numerous nations" had volunteered to be part of the force - but noted Israeli authorities would have to be satisfied with participants.

This appeared to be a reference to Turkey, amid accounts Israel had rejected the nation's involvement.

It remained unclear, however, how this contingent could be stationed without an agreement with Hamas.

Israel initiated a military campaign in Gaza in response to the 7 October 2023 attack, in which Hamas-led gunmen killed about twelve hundred people and took two hundred fifty-one additional persons as hostages.

At least 68,519 have been lost their lives in military actions in the region from that time, according to the area's health authorities under the group's control.