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Units from Egyptian authorities and the ICRC have been authorized to locate the remains of deceased hostages taken during the 7 October attacks, Israeli authorities have verified.

The Israeli government announced that the teams have been permitted to search past the so-called "demarcation line" in the region controlled by Israeli forces in Gaza.

The group has transferred fifteen out of 28 hostages who lost their lives under the first phase of a American-mediated truce agreement, which requires it to hand over all remains of captives. The group said it is now coordinating with Egyptian authorities.

Donald Trump has warned the organization to begin returning the bodies "promptly, or the other countries participating in this great peace will intervene".

An official representative said the crew from Egypt has been authorized to work with the Red Cross to locate the bodies, and would use digging equipment and vehicles for the operation past the "yellow line".

The "yellow line" indicates the boundary running along the northern, south and east of the Gaza territory that Israeli forces pulled back to, as part of the first stage of the ceasefire deal.

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

The Egyptian government, along with Qatar and Turkey, is a principal participant of the mediated by Trump peace initiative for Gaza, which was ratified in the Egyptian resort of the resort town earlier this month.

The news will be welcomed by relatives, eager to provide a proper burial.

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

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

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

After more than 24 months of intense bombardment by Israeli forces, the United Nations calculates that as much as eighty-four percent of the territory has been reduced to rubble.

Hamas says it is doing its best to retrieve hostage bodies, but it encounters challenges locating them under debris of structures bombed out by the IDF in Gaza.

It is now working in coordination with the Egyptian authorities.

On Sunday, an Israeli government spokesperson stated that Hamas was aware of where the remains were.

"If Hamas made more of an effort, they would be able to retrieve the remains of our hostages," the spokesperson commented.

The former president posted on his social media account on Saturday that measures would be taken if the bodies of the deceased hostages were not returned quickly.

"A portion of the bodies are hard to reach, but others they can return now and, for unknown reasons, they are not. Maybe it has do with their disarming," he remarked.

Trump added: "We will observe what they accomplish over the coming two days. I am watching this very closely."

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On the weekend, the Israeli leader announced Israel would determine which foreign forces it would permit as part of a planned international force 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 stated explicitly regarding foreign troops that we will decide which units are not acceptable to us, and this is how we operate and will continue to operate," he declared talking at the beginning of a government session.

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

This appeared to be a reference to the Turkish government, amid accounts Israeli officials had rejected the nation's participation.

It remained unclear, however, how this contingent could be deployed without an agreement with the organization.

Israel initiated a armed operation in the territory in response to the 7 October 2023 attack, in which militants associated with the group took the lives of about 1,200 individuals and took 251 others as captives.

At least 68,519 have been lost their lives in Israeli attacks in Gaza since then, according to the area's Hamas-run health ministry.