Egypt and Red Cross Participate in Search for Captive Bodies in Gaza
Units from Egypt and the International Committee of the Red Cross have been granted permission to locate the bodies of deceased hostages captured during the 7 October attacks, Israeli authorities have verified.
The authorities in Israel announced that the crews have been allowed to search past the referred to as "demarcation line" in the region controlled by military personnel in Gaza.
The group has transferred fifteen out of 28 deceased Israeli hostages under the initial stage of a American-mediated ceasefire deal, which mandates it to transfer all hostage bodies. The group stated it is now coordinating with officials in Egypt.
Donald Trump has cautions the organization to start return the bodies "quickly, or the additional nations participating in this significant peace will take action".
An official representative said the crew from Egypt has been permitted to work with the ICRC to find the remains, and would use excavator machines and trucks for the search beyond the "yellow line".
The "yellow line" indicates the border running along the north, south and eastern of the Gaza territory that Israeli forces withdrew 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 Turkish authorities, is a key signatory of the Trump-brokered Gaza peace plan, which was signed in the coastal city of the resort town earlier this month.
The development will be greeted positively by family members, desperate to provide a proper burial.
The ICRC has already been heavily involved in the repatriation of hostages.
Hamas does not hand over its detainees - living or deceased - straight to the IDF, but rather to the ICRC, which in turn accompanies them through Gaza and hands them on to the Israeli military.
But the arrival of digging crews from Egypt inside the Gaza territory is new.
After more than 24 months of heavy shelling by Israeli forces, the UN calculates that as much as 84% of the area has been reduced to rubble.
Hamas claims it is making every effort to retrieve hostage bodies, but it faces difficulty finding them under debris of structures bombed out by the IDF in the region.
It is now working in coordination with the Egyptian authorities.
On Sunday, an Israeli government spokesperson stated that the organization was aware of where the remains were.
"If Hamas put in greater work, they would be able to retrieve the remains of our hostages," the representative commented.
The former president shared on his Truth Social platform on Saturday that action would be taken if the bodies of the hostages who died were not returned quickly.
"A portion of the bodies are hard to reach, but the rest they can hand over now and, for some reason, they are not. Maybe it has to do with their demilitarization," he remarked.
He continued: "We will observe what they do over the coming two days. I am monitoring the situation with great attention."
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On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Israel would decide which foreign forces 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 safety, and we have also stated explicitly regarding international forces that we will determine which forces are unacceptable to us, and this is how we operate and will proceed," he declared speaking at the beginning of a government session.
On the end of the week, the American diplomat indicated "a lot of countries" had volunteered to be involved in the force - but noted Israel would have to be satisfied with those taking part.
This seemed like a allusion to Turkey, amid accounts Israel had vetoed the country's participation.
It remained unclear, however, how such a force could be deployed without an agreement with the organization.
Israel launched a armed operation in Gaza in response to the 7 October 2023 attack, in which militants associated with the group killed about 1,200 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 the region from that time, according to the territory's health authorities under the group's control.