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Units from Egyptian authorities and the International Committee of the Red Cross have been authorized to locate the bodies of hostages who perished taken during the October 7th incidents, officials in Israel have verified.

The authorities in Israel announced that the teams have been permitted to search past the referred to as "demarcation line" in the region controlled by military personnel in the Gaza territory.

The group has handed over 15 out of 28 deceased Israeli hostages under the first phase of a US-brokered ceasefire deal, which requires it to transfer all hostage bodies. The group stated it is now working together with Egyptian authorities.

Donald Trump has warned Hamas to start return the bodies "promptly, or the other countries involved in this significant 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 digging equipment and vehicles for the search beyond the "yellow line".

The "yellow line" indicates the border running along the northern, south and eastern 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 authorized the entry of these crews.

The Egyptian government, along with Qatari officials and Turkish authorities, is a key signatory of the mediated by Trump Gaza peace plan, which was ratified in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh earlier this month.

The news will be greeted positively by family members, desperate to provide a proper burial.

The ICRC has already been deeply engaged in the return of captives.

Hamas does not hand over its captives - alive or deceased - straight to the IDF, but instead to the Red Cross, which in turn accompanies them through the territory and hands them on to the Israeli military.

But the entry of Egyptian excavation teams inside the Gaza Strip is a recent development.

After more than 24 months of intense bombardment by Israel, the United Nations estimates that as much as 84% of the territory has been destroyed completely.

Hamas says it is making every effort to recover hostage bodies, but it encounters challenges finding them under debris of buildings bombed out by the IDF in the region.

It is now coordinating with the Egyptian authorities.

On Sunday, an Israeli government spokesperson said that Hamas knew where the bodies were.

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

Trump posted on his social media account on the weekend that action would be implemented if the bodies of the hostages who died were not returned quickly.

"A portion of the bodies are difficult to access, but others they can return now and, for some reason, they are not. Maybe it has to do with their disarming," he remarked.

He continued: "Let's see what they do over the next 48 hours. I am monitoring the situation very closely."

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On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would determine which international troops it would permit as part of a planned multinational contingent in the region to help maintain the truce under the former president's initiative.

"We are in command of our security, and we have also made it clear regarding international forces that we will determine which forces are unacceptable to us, and this is how we operate and will proceed," he declared speaking at the start of a cabinet meeting.

On the end of the week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said "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 seemed like a reference to the Turkish government, amid reports Israel had rejected the country's participation.

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

The Israeli military initiated a military campaign in the territory in response to the 7 October 2023 attack, in which Hamas-led gunmen killed about twelve hundred people and captured two hundred fifty-one others as hostages.

At least sixty-eight thousand five hundred nineteen have been lost their lives in military actions in Gaza from that time, according to the territory's health authorities under the group's control.