Israel believes that several deceased hostages may be located in areas of the Yellow Line under IDF control, and searches are currently underway to locate them, two Israeli officials told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday morning. The Yellow Line marks the ceasefire demarcation zone between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
Additionally, a Red Cross team has arrived in Rafah, near the Yellow Line, to locate additional deceased hostages, N12 reported. The Israeli government approved Cairo’s request to allow the entry of Egyptian equipment and personnel to assist as part of the efforts to locate and retrieve remains of slain hostages, an Israeli security official told the Post on Saturday evening.
Egyptian teams enter Gaza to help locate remains of slain hostages
The team and equipment have entered the Gaza Strip. Israel was preparing for the possibility that Hamas would release the remains of two more hostages soon, Army Radio and N12 News reported earlier, each citing an Israeli source. On Friday, there were indications that the terror group was preparing to do so; however, it did not.
Hamas could return eight more hostages to Israel; however, there are another five whose whereabouts are unknown, a senior Israeli official told Ynet.
No more remains of hostages have been returned since Tuesday night. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel would determine which foreign forces it would allow into Gaza as part of a planned international force to help secure a fragile ceasefire under US President Donald Trump’s plan.
It remains unclear whether Arab and other states will be ready to commit troops, in part given the refusal of Hamas terrorists to disarm as called for by the plan, while Israel has voiced concerns about the makeup of the force. While the Trump administration has ruled out sending US soldiers into the Gaza Strip, it has been speaking to Indonesia, the UAE, Egypt, Qatar, Turkey, and Azerbaijan about contributing to the multinational force.
“We are in control of our security, and we have also made it clear regarding international forces that Israel will determine which forces are unacceptable to us, and this is how we operate and will continue to operate,” Netanyahu said. “This is, of course, acceptable to the United States as well, as its most senior representatives have expressed in recent days,” he told a session of his cabinet.
Turkish involvement
Israel, which began a military campaign in Gaza against Hamas after the terror group’s cross-border attack on October 7, 2023, continues to control all access to the territory. Last week, Netanyahu hinted that he would be opposed to Turkish security forces having any role in Gaza. Once-warm Turkish-Israeli relations soured drastically during the Gaza war, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan lambasting Israel’s military campaign in the enclave.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, on a visit to Israel aimed at shoring up the truce, said on Friday that the international force would have to be made up of “countries that Israel is comfortable with.” He made no comment on Turkish involvement.
Rubio added that Gaza’s future governance still needed to be worked out among Israel and partner nations, but could not include Hamas. Rubio later said US officials were receiving input on a possible UN resolution or international agreement to authorize the multinational force in Gaza and would discuss the issue in Qatar, a key Gulf mediator on Gaza, on Sunday.
Challenges to Trump's plan
A major challenge to Trump’s plan is that Hamas has balked at disarming. Since the ceasefire took hold two weeks ago as the first stage of Trump’s 20-point plan, the terror group has waged a violent crackdown on clans that have tested its grip on power. At the same time, the remains of 13 deceased hostages remain in Gaza, with Hamas citing obstacles to locating them in the pervasive rubble left by the fighting.
An Israeli government spokesperson said on Sunday that Hamas, which released the remaining 20 living hostages it had kidnapped in its October 2023 assault, knew where the bodies were. “Israel is aware that Hamas knows where our deceased hostages are, in fact, located. If Hamas made more of an effort, they would be able to retrieve the remains of our hostages,” the spokesperson said.
Israel had, however, allowed the entry of an Egyptian technical team to work with the Red Cross to locate the bodies, she said, adding that the team would use excavator machines and trucks to search beyond the so-called yellow line in Gaza, behind which Israeli troops had initially pulled back under Trump’s plan.
Netanyahu began the cabinet session by stressing that Israel was an independent country and rejecting the notion that “the American administration controls me and dictates Israel’s security policy.” Israel and the US, he said, are a “partnership.”
Diplomats and analysts say Trump managed to push Netanyahu, who had long rejected global pressure for a ceasefire in Gaza, to accept his framework for a broader peace deal and also forced him to call Qatar’s leader to apologize after Israel’s failed bombing raid targeting Hamas negotiators in Qatar.
Trump also persuaded Arab states to convince Hamas to return all the Israeli hostages, its key leverage in the war.