Egypt and International Committee of the Red Cross Join Effort for Hostage Remains in Gaza
Teams from Egyptian authorities and the ICRC have been granted permission to locate the bodies of hostages who perished captured during the 7 October attacks, officials in Israel have confirmed.
The authorities in Israel stated that the teams have been permitted to search beyond the so-called "demarcation line" in the region under the control of Israeli forces in the Gaza territory.
Hamas has handed over 15 out of 28 deceased Israeli hostages under the first phase of a American-mediated truce agreement, which requires it to transfer all remains of captives. The organization stated it is now coordinating with officials in Egypt.
The former US president has cautions Hamas to begin returning the remains "promptly, or the additional nations participating in this great peace will intervene".
An official representative said the Egyptian team has been permitted to work with the Red Cross to locate the remains, and would use excavator machines and trucks for the search past the "yellow line".
The "yellow line" indicates the border running along the northern, southern and eastern of the Gaza territory that Israeli forces pulled back to, as part of the initial phase of the ceasefire deal.
Previously, Israel has not authorized the access of these crews.
Egypt, along with Qatari officials and Turkey, is a principal participant 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 relatives, desperate to give them a proper burial.
The ICRC has already been heavily involved in the repatriation of hostages.
Hamas does not hand over its captives - alive or deceased - straight to the IDF, but rather to the ICRC, which in turn accompanies them through the territory and transfers them to the IDF.
But the entry of Egyptian excavation teams inside the Gaza territory is a recent development.
After more than 24 months of heavy shelling by Israel, the United Nations estimates that as much as 84% of the area has been destroyed completely.
The group says it is making every effort to retrieve hostage bodies, but it faces difficulty locating them under rubble of structures bombed out by the Israeli military in Gaza.
It is now coordinating with the Egyptian authorities.
On the weekend, an Israeli government spokesperson stated that the organization was aware of where the bodies were.
"If the group put in greater work, they would be able to retrieve the remains of our captives," the spokesperson commented.
The former president shared on his social media account on the weekend that action would be taken if the remains of the hostages who died were not returned promptly.
"A portion of the remains are hard to reach, but the rest they can hand over now and, for some reason, they are not. Perhaps it has do with their disarming," he said.
He added: "We will observe what they accomplish over the coming two days. I am monitoring the situation very closely."
- Gaza minors losing their lives as they await Israeli authorities to enable evacuations
- Rubio states many nations prepared to join Gaza peacekeeping unit
- Recent photographs reveal Israeli control line deeper into the territory than expected
On the weekend, the Israeli leader said the country would determine which international troops it would allow as part of a proposed multinational contingent in Gaza to help secure the ceasefire under the former president's initiative.
"We are in command of our security, and we have also stated explicitly regarding foreign troops that we will decide which forces are unacceptable to us, and this is how we operate and will continue to operate," he declared talking at the beginning of a cabinet meeting.
On Friday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio indicated "numerous countries" had offered to be involved in the contingent - but added Israel would have to be comfortable with those taking part.
This appeared to be a allusion to Turkey, amid reports Israel had vetoed the nation's involvement.
It was still uncertain, however, how this contingent could be stationed without an agreement with the organization.
The Israeli military initiated a armed operation in Gaza 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 hostages.
No fewer than 68,519 have been killed in military actions in the region since then, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.