A Red Cross official stated that its representatives accompanied Hamas officials into zones of the Gaza Strip still under Israeli military control to facilitate the hunt for the remains of Israeli hostages.
Under the US-brokered ceasefire, which took effect on October 10, Hamas is required to hand over the bodies of all captives as soon as possible. In exchange, Israel has agreed to hand over the remains of 15 Palestinians for each Israeli.
The organization has so far handed back the bodies of 15 of those taken hostage but none in the last five days, as some of those bodies are believed to be in areas beyond the ceasefire boundary designating Gaza’s ceasefire.
“At the request of the parties, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) accompanied a party to the conflict as the group looked for the remains of the deceased individuals beyond the military-established ‘yellow line’,” said a representative for the committee.
The spokesperson continued: “The parties to the hostilities established the modalities of the operation and delegated the Red Cross to act as a neutral intermediary. We was not involved in the discussions.”
The official additionally explained: “The ICRC was did not participate in the physical hunt for the bodies nor does it take part in the retrieval of remains.”
Under global legal norms, it is the duty of the parties involved in a hostilities to locate, gather, and recover the bodies of the deceased.
Recently, the US president issued a two-day ultimatum to the organization. “Hamas is going to have to start returning the remains of the deceased hostages, including American citizens, quickly, or the other countries participating in this great peace will intervene,” he posted on his social‑media platform.
When the two-day window neared, the group, joined by the ICRC, joined teams from Egypt, who were granted permission by Israel to look for remains beyond the line marking the withdrawal of troops inside the territory. An official representative said the delegation would use heavy machinery and vehicles in the operation.
This development was corroborated by an source within Israel, who told local press that members of the group had been permitted to enter sections of Gaza under military authority to look for the remains of hostages, together with Egyptian and ICRC teams.
“To achieve this goal, Hamas members were permitted to pass the yellow line,” the source was cited as stating.
Video published by a regional network seemed to show members of a Hamas unit – belonging to the group’s armed faction tasked with holding captives – accompanying a Red Cross vehicle in a specific location near a southern city, which lies outside IDF jurisdiction.
Efforts to locate for the bodies of individuals taken captive has become one of the most delicate matters in the truce reached between the parties. Yet, the effort to find the bodies has proved difficult from the beginning, given the presence of an approximate 60m tonnes of debris across the strip, where, as per health officials, at least ten thousand residents are recorded as unaccounted for, trapped under the debris.
The group has claimed it does not know the precise locations of all the bodies, saying it has lost contact with a number of its teams that had been holding the captives and were allegedly eliminated during Israeli bombardments.
In contrast, an official representative asserted that Hamas knew the whereabouts of the remains. “If Hamas made more of an effort, they would be able to recover the remains of our captives,” the spokesperson said.
While the American leader has conceded that some of the bodies are hard to access, he said that “the rest they can return now and, for some reason, they are failing to do so.”
“This could be related to the disarming of the group,” he noted.
The US administration has said it has received guarantees from the organization that the faction will disarm, though no clear timeline has been established. The militant organisation remains reluctant to surrender its weapons without firm guarantees about the fate of its fighters.
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