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Teams from Egypt and the ICRC have been authorized to search for the bodies of deceased hostages captured during the October 7th incidents, officials in Israel have verified.

The Israeli government announced that the crews have been allowed to operate beyond the so-called "yellow line" in the region under the control of Israeli forces in the Gaza territory.

The group has handed over 15 out of twenty-eight deceased Israeli hostages under the first phase of a American-mediated ceasefire deal, which mandates it to hand over all remains of captives. The group said it is now working together with Egyptian authorities.

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

An official representative indicated the crew from Egypt has been authorized to work with the Red Cross to locate the bodies, and would use digging equipment and trucks for the search beyond the "demarcation line".

The "demarcation line" indicates the border running along the north, southern and eastern of the Gaza territory that Israeli forces withdrew to, as part of the first stage of the ceasefire deal.

Until now, Israeli authorities has not approved the entry of these crews.

Egypt, along with Qatari officials and Turkish authorities, is a key signatory of the mediated by Trump peace initiative for Gaza, which was signed in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh in recent weeks.

The development will be greeted positively by relatives, eager to give them a proper burial.

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

The organization does not hand over its captives - alive or deceased - straight to the Israel Defense Forces, but rather to the ICRC, which in turn accompanies them through Gaza and transfers them to the IDF.

But the arrival of Egyptian excavation teams inside the Gaza territory is a recent development.

After more than two years of heavy shelling by Israel, the United Nations estimates that as much as 84% of the territory has been reduced to rubble.

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

It is now working in coordination with the officials in Egypt.

On Sunday, an Israeli government spokesperson stated that Hamas knew where the remains were.

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

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

"Some of the bodies are hard to reach, but the rest they can return now and, for some reason, they are not. Maybe 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 decide which international troops it would permit as part of a proposed international force in the region to help secure the ceasefire under Trump's plan.

"We are in control of our safety, and we have also stated explicitly regarding international forces that we will decide which forces are unacceptable to us, and this is how we operate and will continue to operate," he declared talking at the beginning of a cabinet meeting.

On the end of the week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said "a lot of countries" had offered to be part of the force - but noted Israeli authorities would have to be satisfied with those taking part.

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

It was still uncertain, however, how such a force could be deployed without an understanding with the organization.

Israel initiated a military campaign in the territory in response to the incidents of October 7th, in which militants associated with the group took the lives of about 1,200 people and captured two hundred fifty-one additional persons as captives.

No fewer than sixty-eight thousand five hundred nineteen have been killed in military actions in the region since then, according to the territory's health authorities under the group's control.