Red Cross and Egyptian teams have been permitted to search for the bodies of deceased hostages beyond the ‘yellow line’ demarcating the Israeli military’s pullback in the Gaza Strip, an Israeli government spokesperson said yesterday.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday Israel would determine which foreign forces it would allow as part of a planned international force in Gaza 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 to disarm as called for by the plan, while Israel has voiced concerns about the make-up 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, Türkiye and Azerbaijan to contribute 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 US as well, as its most senior representatives have expressed in recent days,” he told a session of his cabinet.
Israel, which besieged Gaza for two years to back up its air and ground war in the enclave against Hamas after it’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 any role for Turkish security forces in Gaza.
Once-warm Turkish-Israeli relations soured drastically during the Gaza war, with Turkish President Reccep Tayyip Erdogan lambasting Israel’s devastating air and ground campaign in the small Palestinian enclave.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, on a visit to Israel aimed at shoring up the truce, said the international force would have to be made up of “countries that Israel’s 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 authorise the multinational force in Gaza and would discuss the issue in Qatar, a key Gulf mediator on Gaza, yesterday.
A major challenge to Trump’s plan is that Hamas has baulked at disarming. Since the ceasefire took hold two weeks ago as the first stage of Trump’s 20-point plan, Hamas 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 yesterday Hamas, which released the remaining 20 living hostages it took 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 the team would use excavator machines and trucks for the search beyond the so-called yellow line in Gaza behind which Israeli troops have initially pulled back under Trump’s plan.
Netanyahu began the cabinet session by stressing Israel was an independent country, rejecting the notion that “the American administration controls me and dictates Israel’s security policy.” Israel and the US, he said, are a “partnership.”
Austria’s Chancellor Christian Stocker has firmly rejected any suggestion of banning Israel from the Eurovision Song Contest as his country prepares to host the next edition of the competition in 2026.
“I would consider it a fatal mistake to exclude Israel,” Stocker was quoted as saying in an interview with German news agency dpa published yesterday, Austria’s National Day.
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