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Teams from Egypt and the International Committee of the Red Cross have been authorized to search for the remains of deceased hostages taken during the 7 October attacks, officials in Israel have verified.

The Israeli government announced that the crews have been allowed to operate beyond the referred to as "demarcation line" in the region under the control of Israeli forces in Gaza.

The group has handed over 15 out of 28 deceased Israeli hostages under the first phase of a American-mediated ceasefire deal, which mandates it to transfer all hostage bodies. The group stated it is now working together with officials in Egypt.

The former US president has cautions Hamas to start return the bodies "promptly, or the additional nations participating in this significant peace will take action".

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

The "yellow line" marks the border running along the northern, south and eastern of Gaza that Israel pulled back to, as part of the initial phase of the truce agreement.

Until now, Israel has not authorized the access of these crews.

Egypt, along with Qatari officials and Turkish authorities, is a principal participant of the Trump-brokered peace initiative for Gaza, which was signed in the coastal city of Sharm el-Sheikh in recent weeks.

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

The ICRC has already been heavily involved in the repatriation of hostages.

The organization does not hand over its detainees - alive or deceased - straight to the IDF, but rather to the Red Cross, which in turn accompanies them through the territory and hands them on to the IDF.

But the arrival of digging crews from Egypt inside the Gaza Strip is new.

After more than 24 months of heavy shelling by Israel, the United Nations calculates that as much as 84% of the territory has been destroyed completely.

Hamas says it is making every effort to retrieve remains of captives, but it encounters challenges locating them under debris of structures destroyed by the IDF in Gaza.

It is now coordinating with the officials in Egypt.

On the weekend, an Israeli government spokesperson said that Hamas knew where the remains were.

"If the group made more of an effort, they would be able to retrieve the remains of our captives," the representative said.

The former president shared on his social media account on the weekend that action would be taken if the remains of the hostages who died were not handed back quickly.

"A portion of the remains are hard to reach, but others they can hand over at present and, for some reason, they are not. Perhaps it has do with their demilitarization," he remarked.

Trump continued: "Let's see what they accomplish over the next 48 hours. I am watching this with great attention."

• Palestinian children dying as they wait for Israel to enable evacuations
• The US Secretary of State states many nations prepared to participate in the region's security force
• New images show demarcation zone deeper into the territory than anticipated

On the weekend, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Israel would decide which international troops it would allow as part of a planned international force in the region to help maintain the ceasefire under the former president's initiative.

"We are in command of our safety, and we have also made it clear regarding foreign troops that we 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 the end of the week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said "a lot of nations" had volunteered to be part of the contingent - but added Israeli authorities would have to be comfortable with participants.

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 understanding with Hamas.

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

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