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Units from Egypt and the ICRC have been granted permission to locate the bodies of hostages who perished captured during the 7 October attacks, officials in Israel have verified.

The authorities in Israel announced that the teams have been permitted to operate beyond the so-called "demarcation line" in the area under the control of military personnel in Gaza.

Hamas has handed over fifteen out of twenty-eight deceased Israeli hostages under the initial stage of a US-brokered ceasefire deal, which requires it to hand over all remains of captives. The group said it is now working together with officials in Egypt.

The former US president has warned Hamas to begin returning the remains "promptly, or the other countries involved in this great peace will intervene".

An Israeli spokesperson indicated the crew from Egypt has been authorized to work with the Red Cross to locate the bodies, and would use excavator machines and trucks for the search past the "yellow line".

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

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

Egypt, along with Qatari officials and Turkey, is a principal participant of the Trump-brokered Gaza peace plan, which was ratified in the Egyptian resort of the resort town earlier this month.

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

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

The organization does not hand over its captives - alive or deceased - directly to the Israel Defense Forces, but instead to the ICRC, 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 territory is a recent development.

After more than 24 months of intense bombardment by Israel, the UN calculates that as much as 84% of the territory has been reduced to rubble.

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

It is now working in coordination with the Egyptian authorities.

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

"If the group put in greater work, they would be able to recover the remains of our captives," the spokesperson said.

The former president shared on his social media account on Saturday that measures would be implemented 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 return now and, for some reason, they are not. Perhaps it has to do with their disarming," he remarked.

He added: "Let's see what they do over the next 48 hours. I am watching this very closely."

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

"We are in control of our safety, and we have also stated explicitly regarding international forces that we will determine which forces are unacceptable to us, and this is how we function and will proceed," he declared speaking at the start 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 involved in the contingent - but added Israel would have to be comfortable with participants.

This seemed like a reference to Turkey, amid reports Israel had rejected the country's participation.

It remained unclear, however, how such a force could be deployed without an understanding with the organization.

The Israeli military initiated a military campaign in the territory in following the 7 October 2023 attack, in which Hamas-led gunmen killed about twelve hundred individuals and captured 251 others as hostages.

No fewer than 68,519 have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza from that time, according to the territory's health authorities under the group's control.