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Teams from Egyptian authorities and the International Committee of the Red Cross have been granted permission to search for the bodies of deceased hostages taken during the October 7th incidents, Israeli authorities have verified.

The Israeli government stated that the teams have been permitted to search past the so-called "demarcation line" in the area controlled by military personnel in the Gaza territory.

The group has transferred fifteen out of twenty-eight deceased Israeli hostages under the initial stage of a US-brokered truce agreement, which requires it to transfer all hostage bodies. The organization stated it is now coordinating with Egyptian authorities.

Donald Trump has warned the organization to begin returning the remains "promptly, or the additional nations involved in this great peace will intervene".

An official representative said the Egyptian team has been permitted to work with the Red Cross to find the remains, and would use excavator machines and trucks for the operation past the "demarcation line".

The "yellow line" marks the border running along the northern, southern and east of Gaza that Israel pulled back to, as part of the first stage of the truce agreement.

Previously, Israel has not authorized the access of these crews.

The Egyptian government, along with Qatari officials and Turkish authorities, is a principal participant of the Trump-brokered peace initiative for Gaza, which was ratified in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh in recent weeks.

The news will be greeted positively by relatives, desperate to provide a dignified funeral.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has already been heavily involved in the repatriation of captives.

Hamas does not transfer its captives - living or deceased - directly to the Israel Defense Forces, but instead to the Red Cross, which in turn accompanies them through the territory and transfers them to the IDF.

But the arrival of Egyptian excavation teams inside the Gaza Strip is new.

After more than two years of intense bombardment by Israeli forces, the United Nations estimates that as much as eighty-four percent of the area has been reduced to rubble.

Hamas claims it is doing its best to retrieve hostage bodies, but it faces difficulty finding them under debris of buildings destroyed by the IDF in the region.

It is now working in coordination with the officials in Egypt.

On the weekend, an official representative stated that the organization was aware of where the remains were.

"If Hamas put in greater work, they would be able to recover the remains of our hostages," the representative commented.

Trump shared on his Truth Social platform on Saturday that action would be taken if the remains of the deceased hostages were not handed back quickly.

"Some of the bodies are hard to reach, but others they can return at present and, for some reason, they are not. Maybe it has do with their disarming," he remarked.

Trump added: "Let's see what they do over the coming two days. I am monitoring the situation very closely."

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• New images show Israeli control line further into the territory than expected

On the weekend, the Israeli leader announced Israel would decide which international troops it would permit as part of a proposed multinational contingent in Gaza to help maintain the ceasefire under the former president's initiative.

"We are in control 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 operate and will continue to operate," 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 offered to be involved in the force - but noted Israeli authorities would have to be comfortable with those taking part.

This seemed like a allusion to Turkey, amid reports Israel had vetoed the country's involvement.

It was still uncertain, however, how this contingent could be deployed without an understanding with the organization.

The Israeli military initiated a military campaign in Gaza in following the 7 October 2023 attack, in which militants associated with the group killed about twelve hundred people and captured 251 others as captives.

No fewer than sixty-eight thousand five hundred nineteen have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza from that time, according to the territory's health authorities under the group's control.