Egypt and International Committee of the Red Cross Join Effort for Captive Remains in Gaza
Units from Egypt and the International Committee of the Red Cross have been granted permission to locate the remains of hostages who perished captured during the 7 October attacks, officials in Israel have verified.
The Israeli government stated that the teams have been allowed to operate past the so-called "demarcation line" in the region controlled by Israeli forces in Gaza.
Hamas has handed over fifteen out of 28 hostages who lost their lives under the initial stage of a American-mediated truce agreement, which mandates it to transfer all hostage bodies. The group stated it is now coordinating with Egyptian authorities.
Donald Trump has cautions Hamas to start return the remains "quickly, or the additional nations involved in this significant peace will take action".
An official representative said the Egyptian team has been authorized to work with the Red Cross to find the bodies, and would use digging equipment and trucks for the search beyond the "yellow line".
The "demarcation line" indicates the boundary running along the northern, southern and eastern of the Gaza territory that Israel pulled back to, as part of the initial phase of the truce agreement.
Previously, Israeli authorities has not approved the entry of these crews.
The Egyptian government, along with Qatar and Turkish authorities, is a principal participant of the Trump-brokered peace initiative for Gaza, which was signed in the Egyptian resort of the resort town in recent weeks.
The news will be welcomed by relatives, eager to give them a proper burial.
The International Committee of the Red Cross has already been deeply engaged in the return of captives.
The organization does not hand over its detainees - living or deceased - directly to the Israel Defense Forces, but instead to the Red Cross, which in turn escorts them through Gaza and transfers them to the Israeli military.
But the arrival of Egyptian excavation teams inside the Gaza territory is new.
After more than 24 months of intense bombardment by Israeli forces, the United Nations calculates that as much as eighty-four percent of the territory has been reduced to rubble.
Hamas says it is doing its best to retrieve remains of captives, but it faces difficulty locating them under rubble of buildings destroyed by the Israeli military in the region.
It is now coordinating with the Egyptian authorities.
On the weekend, an Israeli government spokesperson said that the organization knew where the remains were.
"If the group made more of an effort, they would be able to recover the remains of our hostages," the representative 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 the rest they can hand over now and, for unknown reasons, they are not. Maybe it has to do with their disarming," he remarked.
He added: "We will observe what they do over the coming two days. I am monitoring the situation very closely."
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On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would determine which foreign forces it would allow as part of a proposed international force in Gaza to help maintain the ceasefire under Trump's plan.
"We are in command of our safety, and we have also stated explicitly regarding foreign troops that we will determine which units are unacceptable to us, and this is how we function and will continue to operate," he said talking at the start of a cabinet meeting.
On the end of the week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said "numerous nations" had offered to be involved in the force - but added Israeli authorities would have to be comfortable with those taking part.
This seemed like a allusion to the Turkish government, amid reports Israel had vetoed the country's involvement.
It remained unclear, however, how such a force could be stationed without an understanding with the organization.
The Israeli military launched a military campaign in the territory in following the incidents of October 7th, in which militants associated with the group took the lives of about twelve hundred people and took two hundred fifty-one others as captives.
No fewer than 68,519 have been lost their lives in Israeli attacks in the region from that time, according to the area's Hamas-run health ministry.