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Units from Egypt and the ICRC have been authorized to search for the bodies of deceased hostages captured during the 7 October attacks, officials in Israel have verified.

The authorities in Israel stated that the crews have been allowed to search past the referred to as "demarcation line" in the area controlled by military personnel in the Gaza territory.

Hamas has transferred fifteen out of 28 deceased Israeli hostages under the initial stage of a US-brokered ceasefire deal, which mandates it to hand over all hostage bodies. The group stated it is now coordinating with officials in Egypt.

Donald Trump has warned Hamas to start return the bodies "promptly, or the other countries participating in this great peace will intervene".

An Israeli spokesperson indicated the crew from Egypt has been authorized to work with the ICRC to find the bodies, and would use excavator machines and trucks for the operation beyond the "yellow line".

The "yellow line" marks the boundary running along the northern, south and east of the Gaza territory that Israeli forces withdrew to, as part of the initial phase of the truce agreement.

Until now, Israel has not authorized the access of such teams.

The Egyptian government, along with Qatari officials and Turkey, is a key signatory of the mediated by Trump Gaza peace plan, which was ratified in the coastal city of Sharm el-Sheikh in recent weeks.

The development will be greeted positively by family members, desperate to give them a proper burial.

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

The organization does not transfer its detainees - alive or deceased - straight to the IDF, but instead to the Red Cross, which in turn accompanies them through Gaza and transfers them to the IDF.

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

After more than 24 months of heavy shelling by Israel, the United Nations calculates that as much as eighty-four percent of the territory has been destroyed completely.

Hamas claims it is making every effort to recover remains of captives, but it faces difficulty finding them under rubble of structures bombed out by the Israeli military in Gaza.

It is now coordinating with the officials in Egypt.

On Sunday, an official representative stated that the organization knew where the remains were.

"If Hamas put in greater work, they would be able to retrieve the remains of our hostages," the spokesperson said.

Trump posted on his social media account on the weekend that action would be taken if the remains of the deceased hostages were not handed back promptly.

"Some of the remains are hard to reach, but the rest they can return at present and, for unknown reasons, they are not. Maybe it has to do with their demilitarization," he said.

Trump continued: "Let's see what they do over the coming two days. I am watching this very closely."

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On Sunday, the Israeli leader announced the country would decide which foreign forces it would permit as part of a planned international force in the region to help maintain the ceasefire under Trump's plan.

"We are in control of our safety, and we have also made it clear regarding international forces that Israel will decide which forces are not acceptable to us, and this is how we operate and will proceed," he said talking at the beginning of a government session.

On Friday, the American diplomat indicated "a lot of countries" had offered to be involved in the contingent - but noted Israel would have to be comfortable with those taking part.

This appeared to be a reference to Turkey, amid accounts Israel had vetoed the nation's involvement.

It was still uncertain, however, how such a force could be stationed without an agreement with Hamas.

The Israeli military launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to the 7 October 2023 attack, in which militants associated with the group took the lives of about 1,200 people and took 251 others as captives.

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