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Teams from Egyptian authorities and the International Committee of the Red Cross have been granted permission to locate the bodies of deceased hostages captured during the October 7th incidents, officials in Israel have verified.

The Israeli government stated that the crews have been permitted to operate past the referred to as "demarcation line" in the region under the control of military personnel in the Gaza territory.

Hamas has transferred 15 out of twenty-eight deceased Israeli hostages under the first phase of a US-brokered ceasefire deal, which requires it to hand over all hostage bodies. The group stated it is now coordinating with Egyptian authorities.

The former US president has warned the organization to start return the remains "promptly, or the other countries participating in this great peace will take action".

An official representative said the crew from Egypt has been permitted to work with the Red Cross to find the bodies, and would use digging equipment and trucks for the operation past the "demarcation line".

The "demarcation line" indicates the boundary running along the northern, south and eastern of Gaza that Israel withdrew to, as part of the initial phase of the truce agreement.

Previously, Israel has not authorized the entry of these crews.

The Egyptian government, along with Qatar and Turkey, is a principal participant of the Trump-brokered Gaza peace plan, which was signed in the coastal city of Sharm el-Sheikh in recent weeks.

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

The International Committee of the Red Cross has already been deeply engaged in the return of hostages.

Hamas does not transfer its captives - alive or deceased - directly to the IDF, but rather to the Red Cross, which in turn escorts them through the territory and transfers them to the Israeli military.

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

After more than 24 months of heavy shelling by Israeli forces, the United Nations calculates that as much as 84% of the area has been reduced to rubble.

Hamas says it is doing its best to recover remains of captives, but it faces difficulty finding them under debris of buildings destroyed by the IDF in Gaza.

It is now coordinating with the officials in Egypt.

On Sunday, an Israeli government spokesperson said 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 captives," the representative said.

Trump shared on his Truth Social platform on Saturday that measures would be implemented if the bodies of the deceased hostages were not returned quickly.

"Some of the remains are hard to reach, but others they can hand over now and, for unknown reasons, they are not. Perhaps it has do with their disarming," he remarked.

He continued: "We will observe what they do over the coming two days. I am watching this very closely."

• Palestinian children dying as they await Israeli authorities to permit relocations
• The US Secretary of State says lots of nations willing to join Gaza security force
• New images show Israeli control line further into Gaza than expected

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

"We are in command of our security, and we have also stated explicitly regarding foreign troops that Israel will decide which forces are not acceptable to us, and this is how we operate and will proceed," he declared speaking at the start of a government session.

On Friday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said "a lot of nations" had offered to be part of the force - but added Israeli authorities would have to be comfortable with those taking part.

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

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

Israel launched a armed operation in the territory in following the incidents of October 7th, in which militants associated with the group killed about 1,200 individuals and took two hundred fifty-one additional persons as hostages.

No fewer than 68,519 have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since then, according to the area's Hamas-run health ministry.