Egypt along with Red Cross Join Effort for Captive Bodies in Gaza Strip
Teams from Egypt and the ICRC have been authorized to search for the bodies of deceased hostages captured during the 7 October attacks, officials in Israel have confirmed.
The authorities in Israel announced that the crews have been allowed to search beyond the referred to as "yellow line" in the region under the control of Israeli forces in the Gaza territory.
Hamas has handed over fifteen out of twenty-eight hostages who lost their lives under the initial stage of a US-brokered truce agreement, which mandates it to hand over all remains of captives. The organization said it is now coordinating with officials in Egypt.
The former US president has warned the organization to start return the remains "quickly, or the other countries involved in this great peace will intervene".
An Israeli spokesperson indicated the Egyptian team has been authorized to work with the ICRC to find the remains, and would use excavator machines and vehicles for the operation beyond the "demarcation line".
The "yellow line" marks the boundary running along the north, southern and eastern of the Gaza territory that Israel pulled back to, as part of the first stage of the truce agreement.
Previously, Israel has not authorized the entry of such teams.
The Egyptian government, along with Qatar and Turkish authorities, is a principal participant of the mediated by Trump Gaza peace plan, which was signed in the Egyptian resort of the resort town earlier this month.
The news will be welcomed by relatives, eager to provide a proper burial.
The ICRC has already been deeply engaged in the return of hostages.
The organization does not hand over its detainees - alive or deceased - straight to the Israel Defense Forces, but instead to the Red Cross, which in turn accompanies them through Gaza and hands them on to the Israeli military.
But the entry of Egyptian excavation teams inside the Gaza Strip is new.
After more than 24 months of heavy shelling by Israel, the United Nations calculates that as much as 84% of the area has been destroyed completely.
The group says it is doing its best to retrieve hostage bodies, but it faces difficulty finding them under rubble of structures destroyed by the Israeli military in the region.
It is now working in coordination with the officials in Egypt.
On Sunday, an official representative stated that the organization knew where the bodies were.
"If the group made more of an effort, they would be able to recover the bodies of our hostages," the representative commented.
Trump shared on his Truth Social platform on the weekend that action would be taken if the bodies of the hostages who died were not returned quickly.
"Some of the remains are difficult to access, but the rest they can return now and, for unknown reasons, they are not. Maybe it has do with their demilitarization," he remarked.
Trump added: "We will observe what they do over the coming two days. I am monitoring the situation very closely."
- Palestinian minors losing their lives as they await Israeli authorities to enable evacuations
- The US Secretary of State states lots of nations willing to join the region's peacekeeping unit
- Recent photographs show demarcation zone further into Gaza than anticipated
On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the country would decide which international troops it would permit as part of a proposed international force in Gaza to help secure the ceasefire under the former president's initiative.
"We are in command of our safety, and we have also made it clear regarding international forces that Israel will determine which units are not acceptable to us, and this is how we operate and will proceed," he said speaking at the start of a government session.
On the end of the week, the American diplomat said "numerous countries" had volunteered to be involved in the force - but added Israel would have to be comfortable with participants.
This seemed like a allusion to the Turkish government, amid reports Israeli officials had rejected the nation's involvement.
It was still uncertain, however, how such a force could be stationed without an agreement with Hamas.
The Israeli military initiated a armed operation in the territory in response to the incidents of October 7th, in which militants associated with the group took the lives of about 1,200 individuals and took two hundred fifty-one additional persons as captives.
At least 68,519 have been killed in military actions in Gaza from that time, according to the territory's health authorities under the group's control.
