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Units from Egyptian authorities and the ICRC have been authorized to search for the remains of deceased hostages taken during the 7 October attacks, Israeli authorities have verified.

The authorities in Israel announced that the crews have been permitted to search beyond the referred to as "yellow line" in the region under the control of Israeli forces in the Gaza territory.

The group has transferred 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 organization said it is now working together with Egyptian authorities.

The former US president has cautions Hamas to begin returning the bodies "promptly, or the other countries involved in this great peace will take action".

An official representative indicated the Egyptian team has been authorized to collaborate with the ICRC to locate the remains, and would use digging equipment and vehicles for the search past the "demarcation line".

The "demarcation line" marks the border running along the northern, south and east of Gaza that Israel pulled back to, as part of the initial phase of the ceasefire deal.

Until now, Israel has not authorized the access of such teams.

The Egyptian government, along with Qatari officials and Turkey, is a key signatory of the Trump-brokered Gaza peace plan, which was ratified in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh earlier this month.

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

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

Hamas does not hand over its captives - alive or deceased - directly to the Israel Defense Forces, but instead to the Red Cross, which in turn accompanies them through Gaza and transfers them to the Israeli military.

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

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

The group says it is making every effort to retrieve remains of captives, but it encounters challenges locating them under rubble of structures destroyed by the Israeli military in the region.

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

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

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

The former president shared on his Truth Social platform on Saturday that action would be implemented if the remains of the deceased hostages were not returned quickly.

"Some of the bodies are hard to reach, but others they can return now and, for some reason, they are not. Maybe it has to do with their demilitarization," he said.

He added: "We will observe what they accomplish over the next 48 hours. I am monitoring the situation very closely."

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On the weekend, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the country would determine which international troops it would allow as part of a proposed multinational contingent in Gaza to help maintain the ceasefire under Trump's plan.

"We are in control of our safety, and we have also made it clear regarding foreign troops that we will determine which forces are unacceptable to us, and this is how we operate and will proceed," he declared speaking at the beginning of a government session.

On Friday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said "a lot of countries" had volunteered to be part of the contingent - but added Israeli authorities would have to be comfortable with participants.

This appeared to be a allusion to Turkey, amid reports Israel had rejected the country's participation.

It was still uncertain, however, how this contingent could be deployed without an understanding with the organization.

The Israeli military launched a military campaign in the territory in response to the 7 October 2023 attack, in which militants associated with the group killed about twelve hundred people and captured 251 additional persons as hostages.

No fewer than sixty-eight thousand five hundred nineteen have been lost their lives in Israeli attacks in the region from that time, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.