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Units from Egyptian authorities and the International Committee of the Red Cross have been granted permission to search for the bodies of hostages who perished taken during the 7 October attacks, officials in Israel have confirmed.

The authorities in Israel stated that the teams have been permitted to search past the so-called "demarcation line" in the region under the control of military personnel in Gaza.

Hamas has handed over fifteen out of twenty-eight deceased Israeli hostages under the first phase of a US-brokered ceasefire deal, which mandates it to hand over all remains of captives. The group stated it is now coordinating with officials in Egypt.

Donald Trump has cautions Hamas to start return the remains "promptly, or the other countries involved in this significant peace will take action".

An official representative indicated the Egyptian team has been permitted to collaborate with the Red Cross to find the remains, and would use digging equipment and trucks for the operation beyond the "demarcation line".

The "demarcation line" indicates the boundary running along the northern, southern and eastern of Gaza that Israeli forces pulled back to, as part of the first stage of the truce agreement.

Previously, Israeli authorities has not authorized the entry of these crews.

The Egyptian government, along with Qatar and Turkey, is a principal participant of the Trump-brokered peace initiative for Gaza, which was ratified in the coastal city of Sharm el-Sheikh earlier this month.

The development will be greeted positively by relatives, eager to give them a dignified funeral.

The ICRC has already been heavily involved in the return of captives.

The organization does not hand over its detainees - living or deceased - directly to the IDF, but instead to the ICRC, which in turn accompanies them through Gaza and transfers them to the Israeli military.

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

After more than two years of intense bombardment by Israeli forces, the UN calculates that as much as 84% of the territory has been reduced to rubble.

The group says it is making every effort to retrieve hostage bodies, but it encounters challenges locating them under rubble of buildings bombed out by the Israeli military in the region.

It is now coordinating with the Egyptian authorities.

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

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

The former president shared on his Truth Social platform on Saturday that measures would be implemented if the bodies of the hostages who died were not handed back promptly.

"Some of the remains are difficult to access, but others they can return now and, for unknown reasons, they are not. Perhaps it has to do with their disarming," he said.

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

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

"We are in control of our security, and we have also stated explicitly regarding foreign troops that we will decide which units are unacceptable to us, and this is how we function and will continue to operate," he said 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 part of the force - but added Israel would have to be satisfied with participants.

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

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

Israel initiated 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 captured 251 others as hostages.

At least sixty-eight thousand five hundred nineteen have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since then, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.