Egypt 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 bodies of hostages who perished captured during the 7 October attacks, Israeli authorities have verified.
The Israeli government stated that the teams have been allowed to search beyond the referred to as "demarcation line" in the area controlled by Israeli forces in the Gaza territory.
The group has transferred fifteen out of twenty-eight hostages who lost their lives under the first phase of a American-mediated ceasefire deal, which mandates it to hand over all hostage bodies. The organization stated it is now working together with Egyptian authorities.
The former US president has cautions Hamas to begin returning the bodies "quickly, or the other countries participating in this significant peace will take action".
An official representative said the crew from Egypt has been authorized to collaborate with the ICRC to locate the remains, and would use digging equipment and trucks for the search beyond the "yellow line".
The "demarcation line" marks the boundary running along the northern, south and eastern of Gaza that Israel withdrew to, as part of the initial phase of the truce agreement.
Until now, Israel has not authorized the entry of these crews.
Egypt, along with Qatari officials and Turkey, is a principal participant of the mediated by Trump peace initiative for Gaza, which was signed in the coastal city of the resort town in recent weeks.
The news will be welcomed by relatives, eager to give them a dignified funeral.
The ICRC has already been heavily involved in the return of captives.
The organization does not transfer its captives - living or deceased - straight to the Israel Defense Forces, but instead to the ICRC, which in turn escorts them through the territory and transfers them to the IDF.
But the entry of Egyptian excavation teams inside the Gaza Strip is a recent development.
After more than 24 months of heavy shelling by Israel, the UN calculates that as much as eighty-four percent of the territory has been reduced to rubble.
The group says it is doing its best to retrieve remains of captives, but it encounters challenges finding them under rubble of structures bombed out by the IDF in the region.
It is now working in coordination with the officials in Egypt.
On Sunday, an official representative stated that Hamas 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 shared on his Truth Social platform on the weekend 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 the rest they can hand over at present and, for unknown reasons, they are not. Maybe it has do with their disarming," he remarked.
He added: "We will observe what they do over the next 48 hours. I am watching this very closely."
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On the weekend, the Israeli leader said the country would determine which international troops it would allow as part of a proposed international force in Gaza to help maintain the ceasefire under the former president's initiative.
"We are in control of our safety, and we have also stated explicitly regarding international forces that we will determine which units are unacceptable to us, and this is how we function and will proceed," he declared speaking at the start of a government session.
On the end of the week, the American diplomat said "numerous countries" had volunteered to be part of the contingent - but added Israeli authorities would have to be satisfied with participants.
This seemed like a allusion to Turkey, amid reports Israeli officials had vetoed the country's participation.
It was still uncertain, however, how this contingent could be stationed without an understanding with Hamas.
Israel initiated a military campaign in Gaza in following the 7 October 2023 attack, in which Hamas-led gunmen killed about twelve hundred people and took 251 additional persons as hostages.
No fewer than sixty-eight thousand five hundred nineteen have been lost their lives in military actions in Gaza since then, according to the territory's health authorities under the group's control.