The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) stated that its representatives joined Hamas officials into zones of the Gaza Strip currently controlled by Israeli military authority to facilitate the hunt for the bodies of individuals held captive.
As part of the truce negotiated by the United States, which began on October 10, Hamas is required to return the remains of all Israeli hostages promptly. In exchange, Israel has agreed to hand over the remains of 15 Palestinians for each Israeli.
Hamas has so far handed back the bodies of fifteen of those held captive but none in the last five days, as some of those remains are thought to be in locations beyond the ceasefire boundary marking the temporary truce line.
“At the request of the involved sides, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) accompanied a party to the conflict as the party searched for the bodies of the deceased individuals beyond the IDF-designated ‘yellow line’,” said a spokesperson for the committee.
She continued: “Those involved to the conflict established the procedures of the operation and delegated the ICRC to serve as a neutral intermediary. We was had no part in those negotiations.”
She additionally explained: “Our team was did not participate in the physical hunt for the deceased nor does it engage in the retrieval of human remains.”
Under global legal norms, it is the responsibility of the parties engaged in a conflict to search for, collect, and retrieve human remains.
Recently, the US president issued a two-day demand to the organization. “Hamas is going to have to begin returning the bodies of the hostages who died, which include American citizens, promptly, or the additional nations participating in this significant truce will take action,” he posted on his online channel.
When the 48-hour deadline approached, Hamas, joined by the ICRC, teamed up with Egyptian teams, who were granted permission by Israeli authorities to look for bodies beyond the line indicating the Israeli military’s pullback inside Gaza. An official representative said the delegation would use excavator machines and vehicles in the operation.
This development was supported by an source within Israel, who told Hebrew-language media that members of the group had been permitted to access sections of Gaza under Israel Defense Forces (IDF) control to search for the bodies of hostages, together with Egyptian and Red Cross teams.
“To achieve this goal, representatives were permitted to cross the designated boundary,” the official was quoted as stating.
Video released by a media outlet appeared to show individuals of a Hamas unit – part of the group’s military wing responsible for guarding captives – accompanying a Red Cross vehicle in a specific location near Rafah, which lies outside Israeli military control.
Efforts to locate for the bodies of Israeli hostages has turned into one of the most sensitive issues in the truce reached between the two sides. However, the attempt to locate the bodies has been challenging from the beginning, given the presence of an approximate enormous amount of debris across the territory, where, as per health officials, at least 10,000 residents are recorded as missing, trapped under the rubble.
The group has stated it lacks information on the exact whereabouts of all the bodies, saying it has been unable to communicate with several of its teams that had been holding the captives and were allegedly eliminated during Israeli bombardments.
However, an official representative asserted that the organization was aware of the whereabouts of the bodies. “Should the group exerted greater effort, they would be able to recover the remains of our hostages,” the spokesperson said.
While the American leader has conceded that a portion of the bodies are hard to access, he said that “the rest they can hand over immediately and, for unknown reasons, they are not.”
“It may have to do with the surrender of weapons of Hamas,” he noted.
Washington has said it has received guarantees from the organization that the group will disarm, though no clear timeline has been established. The militant organisation remains hesitant to give up its arms without firm guarantees about the fate of its members.
