An Egyptian army search and rescue team equipped with heavy machinery has entered the Gaza Strip to help find and recover the remains of dead Israeli hostages, sources told The National on Sunday.
They said the team, which arrived in Gaza late on Saturday, will be working in areas of the enclave not controlled by the Israeli military, including Gaza city, Deir Al Balah in the centre of the enclave and Khan Younis in the south.
The Egyptian team, according to the sources, will also help in defusing unexploded ordnance left from the two-year Gaza war, but only in areas where its members are operating.
Later on Sunday, Israel, which controls Gaza's borders, confirmed it had allowed Egyptian and Red Cross personnel to enter the Palestinian territory. It also said they would be allowed to work beyond the “yellow line” to which Israeli troops have withdrawn since a Gaza ceasefire went into effect more than two weeks ago.
An Israeli government spokeswoman, Shosh Bedrosian, said the remains of 13 dead hostages were yet to be handed over, and accused Hamas of making “excuses” for failing to retrieve them. “If Hamas made more of an effort, they would be able to retrieve the remains of our hostages,” she said.
She warned that Israel would “respond according to our discretion” to any breaches of the ceasefire.
The Gaza war, triggered by a deadly, Hamas-led attack on southern Israel in October 2023, has been paused by the US-brokered, October 10 ceasefire that's part of US President Donald Trump's Gaza peace plan.
Hamas has since the ceasefire released 20 living Israeli hostages in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinians who had been detained in Israeli prisons. The group has also returned the remains of 15 of 28 hostages who died while in captivity in Gaza.
The return of all captives has been impeded by the large-scale destruction of the enclave, where dead hostages have been buried inside Hamas's underground tunnels that were destroyed by Israel.
The sources gave no details on the size of the Egyptian team nor of the type of machinery they took with them but said their mission is being carried out in co-ordination with Israel and the US. Images of the Egyptian mission going into Gaza showed excavators and heavy trucks.
On October 17 a Turkish official said an 81-man search and rescue team from Turkey was waiting in Egypt for Israeli clearance to enter Gaza. But the team never received approval from Israel, and reports suggested Israel objected to any Turkish involvement in Gaza. It is not known if the team is still in Egypt.
The Turkish question could rear its head again as attention turns to a proposed stabilisation force involving foreign troops in Gaza. The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has hinted he would oppose Turkish involvement, and his spokeswoman said on Sunday that Israel would “determine which forces are unacceptable to us”.
“When I was in Washington, it was said that I control the American administration, that I dictate its security policy,” Mr Netanyahu said at a cabinet meeting. “Now they claim the opposite – the American administration controls me and it dictates Israel's security policy. I want to make one thing clear – our security policy is in our own hands.”
The entry into Gaza of the Egyptian team could be a sign of slightly improved relations between Egypt and Israel, thanks to the October 10 ceasefire. The two nations are bound by a US-sponsored peace treaty signed in 1979, ending decades of animosity punctuated by four full-fledged wars between 1948 and 1973.
Relations have significantly soured over the Gaza war, with Egypt accusing Israel of genocidal tactics and of using hunger as a weapon.
Egypt, which borders Israel and Gaza, mediated the ceasefire along with the US, Qatar and Turkey. The deal was celebrated on October 13 by Mr Trump and other world leaders at a ceremony hosted by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El Sheikh. Neither Hamas nor Israel were represented at the event.
The ceasefire and the release of the hostages and Palestinian prisoners are part of the first phase of Mr Trump's 20-point peace plan. The later stages of the plan include such delicate steps as disarming Hamas, the governing of postwar Gaza and the presence of an international stabilisation force in the territory.
The fragile ceasefire has largely held, though on Saturday the Israeli military said it attacked an alleged militant from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, an ally of Hamas.
The military said soldiers had “conducted a precise strike in the Nuseirat area in the central Gaza Strip, targeting a terrorist from the Islamic Jihad terrorist organisation, who planned to carry out an imminent terrorist attack against [Israeli] troops,”
Al Awda Hospital confirmed it was treating some who were wounded by the attack in Nuseirat. “The hospital has received four injured people following the Israeli occupation's targeting of a civilian car in the Al Ahli Club area in Nuseirat camp in central Gaza,” medical officials said.
The Israeli army said it would continue operations in Gaza “to remove any immediate threat” to its troops.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking to journalists as he concluded a visit to Israel, did not address the Nuseirat strike directly but said such incidents are common in the immediate aftermath of ceasefires.
“Every night will bring new challenges on how to keep it together,” he said of the truce. “So we recognise that, but we also feel like we've made tremendous progress in the last 12 or 13 days.”
Also on Saturday, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), an American non-profit group responsible for providing aid to the territory, said it stood ready to resume shipments under the ceasefire.
The US and Israeli-backed private organisation fed Gazans in May after Israel placed tight restrictions on international agencies, but UN experts and traditional aid groups criticised its work.
Hundreds of Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire while seeking aid at GHF distribution sites, the UN said. In August, UN special rapporteurs called for it to be disbanded.
GHF spokesman Chapin Fay told news agency AFP that the foundation had paused operations during the first phase of the ceasefire while remaining Israeli hostages were being released by Hamas, but was now awaiting orders to get back to work.
“While the situation remains fluid on the ground, GHF has been instructed to remain ready to re-engage and specifically not to take any actions that would preclude us from resuming operations immediately,” Mr Fay said.
“GHF has trucks of aid loaded up and ready to resume delivering aid directly to the Palestinian people, including women, children and the elderly.”
The GHF previously had four distribution centres in Gaza, while the UN system it replaced had 400.
“Our mission will evolve to meet the needs on the ground,” Mr Fay said.
