Egyptian authorities along with International Committee of the Red Cross Participate in Effort 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 deceased hostages captured during the 7 October attacks, Israeli authorities have confirmed.

The authorities in Israel stated that the crews have been allowed to operate past the referred to as "demarcation line" in the area under the control of military personnel in the Gaza territory.

Hamas has handed over 15 out of 28 deceased Israeli hostages under the initial stage of a American-mediated truce agreement, which requires it to transfer all remains of captives. The group said it is now working together with Egyptian authorities.

The former US president has warned Hamas to start return the bodies "promptly, or the additional nations involved in this significant peace will take action".

An Israeli spokesperson indicated the crew from Egypt has been authorized to collaborate with the Red Cross to find the bodies, and would use excavator machines and vehicles for the search past the "yellow line".

The "yellow line" indicates the border running along the northern, southern and east of the Gaza territory that Israel pulled back to, as part of the initial phase of the ceasefire deal.

Until now, Israel has not approved the access of these crews.

Egypt, along with Qatar and Turkish authorities, is a key signatory of the Trump-brokered Gaza peace plan, which was ratified in the Egyptian resort of the resort town in recent weeks.

The development will be welcomed by family members, eager to give them a dignified funeral.

The ICRC has already been deeply engaged in the return of captives.

The organization does not transfer its captives - living or deceased - straight to the IDF, but rather to the ICRC, which in turn escorts them through Gaza and transfers them to the Israeli military.

But the arrival of digging crews from Egypt inside the Gaza territory is new.

After more than 24 months of intense bombardment by Israel, the United Nations calculates that as much as eighty-four percent of the territory has been reduced to rubble.

Hamas claims it is doing its best to recover hostage bodies, but it faces difficulty finding them under debris of buildings destroyed 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 was aware of where the bodies were.

"If the group put in greater work, they would be able to recover the remains of our captives," the spokesperson commented.

The former president posted on his Truth Social platform on the weekend that action would be taken if the remains of the hostages who died were not handed back promptly.

"Some of the remains are hard to reach, but others they can hand over now and, for some reason, they are not. Perhaps it has to do with their demilitarization," he remarked.

Trump continued: "Let's see what they do over the next 48 hours. I am monitoring the situation very closely."

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On the weekend, the Israeli leader announced Israel would decide which international troops it would permit as part of a proposed international force in the region 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 foreign troops that we will determine which units are unacceptable to us, and this is how we operate and will proceed," he said talking at the start of a government session.

On Friday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said "numerous nations" had offered to be part of the contingent - but noted Israeli authorities would have to be comfortable with participants.

This seemed like a allusion to the Turkish government, amid reports Israeli officials had rejected the country's participation.

It was still uncertain, however, how this contingent could be stationed without an understanding with Hamas.

Israel initiated a armed operation in the territory in following the 7 October 2023 attack, in which militants associated with the group killed about 1,200 individuals and took two hundred fifty-one additional persons as hostages.

No fewer than sixty-eight thousand five hundred nineteen have been lost their lives in Israeli attacks in the region since then, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.