Units from Egypt and the ICRC have been granted permission to locate the remains of deceased hostages captured during the 7 October attacks, officials in Israel have verified.
The Israeli government stated that the teams have been allowed to search past the so-called "demarcation line" in the area under the control of military personnel in Gaza.
Hamas has transferred fifteen out of 28 hostages who lost their lives under the first phase of a US-brokered ceasefire deal, which mandates it to transfer all hostage bodies. The organization stated it is now coordinating with officials in Egypt.
Donald Trump has warned the organization to begin returning the bodies "quickly, or the additional nations participating in this great peace will intervene".
An Israeli spokesperson said the Egyptian team has been permitted to work with the ICRC to find the remains, and would use digging equipment and vehicles for the operation past the "yellow line".
The "yellow line" indicates the boundary running along the north, south and east of the Gaza territory that Israel pulled back to, as part of the first stage of the truce agreement.
Previously, Israeli authorities has not approved the access of such teams.
The Egyptian government, along with Qatari officials and Turkish authorities, is a key signatory of the Trump-brokered Gaza peace plan, which was signed in the Egyptian resort of the resort town earlier this month.
The news will be greeted positively by relatives, eager to give them a dignified funeral.
The International Committee of the Red Cross has already been heavily involved in the repatriation of captives.
The organization does not hand over its captives - alive or deceased - directly to the IDF, but rather to the ICRC, which in turn escorts them through Gaza and hands them on to the Israeli military.
But the entry of Egyptian excavation teams inside the Gaza Strip is new.
After more than 24 months of heavy shelling by Israel, the UN estimates that as much as eighty-four percent of the area has been reduced to rubble.
Hamas says it is doing its best to recover hostage bodies, but it encounters challenges finding them under rubble of structures bombed out by the Israeli military in Gaza.
It is now working in coordination with the officials in Egypt.
On the weekend, an Israeli government spokesperson said that Hamas knew where the remains were.
"If Hamas made more of an effort, they would be able to retrieve the bodies of our captives," the spokesperson commented.
The former president posted on his Truth Social platform on the weekend that measures would be taken if the bodies of the deceased hostages were not returned quickly.
"Some of the bodies are hard to reach, but others they can hand over at present and, for unknown reasons, they are not. Perhaps it has do with their demilitarization," he remarked.
He continued: "We will observe what they accomplish over the coming two days. I am watching this with great attention."
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On Sunday, the Israeli leader said Israel would decide which international troops it would allow as part of a proposed multinational contingent in Gaza to help secure the ceasefire under Trump's plan.
"We are in command of our safety, and we have also made it clear regarding international forces that Israel will determine which units are unacceptable to us, and this is how we function and will continue to operate," he said talking at the beginning of a government session.
On the end of the week, the American diplomat indicated "numerous nations" had offered to be involved in the contingent - but noted Israel would have to be comfortable with those taking part.
This seemed like a reference to the Turkish government, amid accounts Israel had vetoed the country's participation.
It remained unclear, however, how such a force could be stationed without an agreement with the organization.
Israel initiated a military campaign in the territory in response to the 7 October 2023 attack, in which militants associated with the group killed about 1,200 people and captured two hundred fifty-one additional persons 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 health authorities under the group's control.
