Egypt and Red Cross Join Effort for Captive Bodies in Gaza
Teams from Egyptian authorities and the International Committee of the Red Cross have been granted permission to search for the remains of deceased hostages taken during the October 7th incidents, officials in Israel have verified.
The Israeli government announced that the crews have been allowed to search past the so-called "demarcation line" in the region under the control of military personnel in the Gaza territory.
Hamas has transferred fifteen out of 28 deceased Israeli hostages under the first phase of a US-brokered ceasefire deal, which requires it to transfer all hostage bodies. The group stated it is now coordinating with Egyptian authorities.
Donald Trump has cautions Hamas to begin returning the remains "promptly, or the additional nations involved in this significant peace will intervene".
An Israeli spokesperson indicated the crew from Egypt has been authorized to work with the Red Cross to locate the remains, and would use excavator machines and vehicles for the operation beyond the "yellow line".
The "demarcation line" marks the border running along the north, southern and eastern of Gaza that Israel withdrew to, as part of the first stage of the truce agreement.
Previously, Israeli authorities has not authorized the entry of such teams.
Egypt, along with Qatar and Turkish authorities, is a key signatory of the mediated by Trump Gaza peace plan, which was signed in the coastal city of the resort town earlier this month.
The development will be greeted positively by relatives, desperate to provide a proper burial.
The International Committee of the Red Cross has already been deeply engaged in the return of captives.
Hamas does not transfer its captives - alive or deceased - straight to the Israel Defense Forces, but rather to the Red Cross, which in turn escorts them through the territory and hands them on to the IDF.
But the arrival of digging crews from Egypt inside the Gaza Strip is a recent development.
After more than two years of intense bombardment by Israeli forces, the UN calculates that as much as 84% of the area has been reduced to rubble.
The group claims it is doing its best to recover 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 working in coordination with the Egyptian authorities.
On the weekend, an Israeli government spokesperson said that the organization knew where the bodies were.
"If the group put in greater work, they would be able to recover the bodies of our hostages," the spokesperson said.
Trump shared on his Truth Social platform on Saturday that action would be implemented if the bodies of the deceased hostages were not handed back quickly.
"Some of the remains are difficult to access, but others they can hand over now and, for some reason, they are not. Perhaps it has do with their demilitarization," he remarked.
Trump added: "Let's see what they do over the coming two days. I am watching this with great attention."
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On the weekend, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the country would decide which international troops it would permit as part of a proposed multinational contingent in the region to help secure the truce under the former president's initiative.
"We are in control of our security, and we have also made it clear regarding foreign troops that we will determine which forces are unacceptable to us, and this is how we function and will proceed," he said 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 contingent - but added Israeli authorities would have to be satisfied with those taking part.
This appeared to be a allusion to Turkey, amid accounts Israeli officials had rejected the country's involvement.
It was still uncertain, however, how such a force could be deployed without an agreement with Hamas.
Israel launched a military campaign in the territory in response to the incidents of October 7th, in which Hamas-led gunmen killed about 1,200 people and captured 251 others as hostages.
At least sixty-eight thousand five hundred nineteen have been killed in military actions in the region since then, according to the area's Hamas-run health ministry.