Egypt along with Red Cross Participate in Effort for Hostage Bodies in Gaza Strip
Units from Egypt and the ICRC have been granted permission to locate the remains of hostages who perished taken during the 7 October attacks, officials in Israel have verified.
The Israeli government stated that the teams have been permitted to search beyond the so-called "demarcation line" in the region controlled by Israeli forces in Gaza.
The group has transferred 15 out of twenty-eight deceased Israeli hostages under the first phase of a US-brokered ceasefire deal, which mandates it to hand over all remains of captives. The organization said it is now coordinating with officials in Egypt.
Donald Trump has cautions the organization to start return the bodies "promptly, or the other countries involved in this significant peace will intervene".
An official representative said the crew from Egypt has been permitted to collaborate with the Red Cross to locate the bodies, and would use excavator machines and trucks for the operation past the "demarcation line".
The "yellow line" marks the border running along the north, southern and east of the Gaza territory that Israeli forces pulled back to, as part of the initial phase of the truce agreement.
Until now, Israeli authorities has not approved 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 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 International Committee of the Red Cross has already been deeply engaged in the return of hostages.
The organization does not transfer its detainees - living or deceased - directly to the Israel Defense Forces, but rather to the Red Cross, which in turn accompanies them through Gaza and transfers them to the Israeli military.
But the arrival of Egyptian excavation teams inside the Gaza Strip is a recent development.
After more than 24 months of intense bombardment by Israel, the UN estimates that as much as 84% of the territory has been reduced to rubble.
The group says it is doing its best to retrieve remains of captives, but it faces difficulty locating them under debris of structures bombed out by the IDF in the region.
It is now coordinating with the Egyptian authorities.
On the weekend, an official representative stated that the organization was aware of where the bodies were.
"If the group made more of an effort, they would be able to retrieve the remains of our hostages," the spokesperson said.
The former president posted on his Truth Social platform on Saturday that action would be taken if the remains of the hostages who died were not handed back promptly.
"A portion of the bodies are difficult to access, but the rest they can return at present and, for some reason, they are not. Perhaps it has to do with their disarming," he remarked.
Trump added: "We will observe what they accomplish over the next 48 hours. I am watching this very closely."
- Gaza minors losing their lives as they await Israel to permit evacuations
- The US Secretary of State says lots of nations prepared to participate in the region's peacekeeping unit
- New images show demarcation zone deeper into the territory than expected
On the weekend, the Israeli leader said Israel would determine which international troops it would permit as part of a proposed multinational contingent in Gaza to help secure the ceasefire under the former president's initiative.
"We are in control of our safety, and we have also made it clear regarding foreign troops that Israel will determine which units are not acceptable to us, and this is how we function and will continue to operate," he declared speaking at the start of a cabinet meeting.
On the end of the week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said "numerous countries" had volunteered to be part of the contingent - but added Israel would have to be satisfied with participants.
This seemed like a allusion to Turkey, amid reports Israel had rejected the country's participation.
It remained unclear, however, how such a force could be stationed without an understanding with the organization.
The Israeli military launched a armed operation in the territory in following the 7 October 2023 attack, in which Hamas-led gunmen killed about twelve hundred people and took two hundred fifty-one others as hostages.
At least sixty-eight thousand five hundred nineteen have been killed in military actions in Gaza since then, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.
