🔗 Share this article Egyptian authorities and Red Cross Participate in Effort for Hostage Bodies in Gaza Egyptian machinery enters into the Gaza territory Units from Egypt and the International Committee of the Red Cross have been authorized to locate the bodies of hostages who perished taken during the 7 October attacks, Israeli authorities have confirmed. The Israeli government stated that the crews have been allowed to operate beyond the so-called "demarcation line" in the region controlled by Israeli forces in the Gaza territory. The group has transferred fifteen out of twenty-eight deceased Israeli hostages under the initial stage of a US-brokered ceasefire deal, which mandates it to hand over all remains of captives. The group said it is now coordinating with officials in Egypt. Donald Trump has warned Hamas to start return the remains "quickly, or the additional nations participating in this significant peace will intervene". An official representative said the Egyptian team has been authorized to work with the Red Cross to find the bodies, and would use digging equipment and vehicles for the operation 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 first stage of the ceasefire deal. Until now, Israeli authorities has not authorized the entry of these crews. The Egyptian government, along with Qatar 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 news will be welcomed by relatives, eager to give them a proper burial. The ICRC has already been heavily involved in the repatriation of captives. The organization does not hand over its captives - living or deceased - directly to the Israel Defense Forces, but instead to the ICRC, which in turn escorts them through the territory and hands them on to the Israeli military. But the entry of digging crews from Egypt inside the Gaza Strip is new. After more than two years of heavy shelling by Israeli forces, the UN calculates that as much as eighty-four percent of the territory has been reduced to rubble. Hamas claims it is making every effort to recover remains of captives, but it faces difficulty finding them under rubble of buildings destroyed by the Israeli military in Gaza. It is now coordinating with the Egyptian authorities. On the weekend, an official representative said that the organization was aware of where the bodies were. "If the group put in greater work, they would be able to recover the bodies of our captives," the spokesperson commented. Trump shared on his social media account on Saturday that action would be implemented if the bodies of the hostages who died were not returned promptly. "A portion of the bodies are hard to reach, but others they can hand over now and, for unknown reasons, they are not. Maybe it has do with their disarming," he said. He added: "We will observe what they do over the coming two days. I am monitoring the situation with great attention." Gaza minors losing their lives as they await Israel to enable evacuations Rubio says lots of countries willing to join the region's peacekeeping unit Recent photographs reveal Israeli control line further into the territory than anticipated On the weekend, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would determine which foreign forces it would allow as part of a proposed multinational contingent in Gaza to help secure the truce under Trump's plan. "We are in command of our safety, and we have also stated explicitly regarding foreign troops that Israel will determine which forces are unacceptable to us, and this is how we function and will continue to operate," he declared talking at the beginning of a cabinet meeting. On the end of the week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said "a lot of nations" had volunteered to be part of the contingent - but added Israeli authorities would have to be comfortable with participants. This seemed like a reference to Turkey, amid reports Israeli officials had vetoed the nation's participation. It was still uncertain, however, how this contingent could be deployed without an agreement with the organization. Israel launched a military campaign in the territory in response to the incidents of October 7th, in which Hamas-led gunmen killed about twelve hundred individuals and took two hundred fifty-one others as hostages. No fewer than sixty-eight thousand five hundred nineteen have been killed in Israeli attacks in the region from that time, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.