As Trump's 48 hour deadline nears, Israel lets Hamas operative cross truce line to search for hostage remains

The Israeli government allowed a Hamas representative to accompany Red Cross workers past the Yellow Line in a search for hostage remains, Israeli media reported on Sunday night. 

Channel 12 News cited an anonymous government source who said that the Red Cross, along with Hamas representatives, were operating inside the Yellow Line, in areas under IDF control. The source noted that this happened with the agreement of the Israeli government. 

Footage released by the Qatari news agency Al-Araby showed members of Hamas’ “Shadow” unit accompanying Red Cross workers in several areas of Gaza outside the Yellow Line, in Khan Younis.

It is not clear if those operatives accompanied the teams in searches in the Rafah area, beyond the Yellow Line, where the Red Cross is looking for bodies based on information provided by Hamas. 

Public broadcaster Kan News reported that in some areas, IDF troops pulled back from areas where the Red Cross and Hamas representatives were going to search for remains, in order to avoid a confrontation. A government source told Kan News that such action by the government is “delusional.” 

“This is a huge return to the policy of October 6th [2023],” the source said. 

Kan also reported that U.S. officials are frustrated by Israel’s insistence on Hamas returning all hostage remains before advancing to the second phase of the ceasefire deal, despite that being a condition of the agreement. 

Kan cited an Israeli “security official” who said the U.S. wants to move to the next stage, even if not all hostage remains have been returned. 

On Saturday, the Israeli government admitted that it had allowed Egyptian technical teams to enter Gaza with engineering equipment to aid in the search for hostage bodies. The Prime Minister’s Office stated that the Egyptian team “is a technical team. They are going in only to locate the slain hostages.” 

On Saturday, U.S. President Donald Trump said in a statement to Truth Social that Hamas is withholding bodies, and he was watching Hamas “very closely.” He also appeared to institute a 48-hour window for Hamas to release additional hostage remains. 

Hamas has not delivered any hostage remains for five days, despite Israeli insistence that the terror group knows the location of around eight of the hostage bodies. Hamas claims that it does not know where the bodies are and needs time to locate them.

An Israeli official told The Jerusalem Post that “The terrorist organization is capable of returning a large number of the murdered hostages’ bodies without any difficulty.” A report in Hebrew media over the weekend claimed that Israel has information about the location of 9 out of the 13 deceased hostages' remains, leaving only 4 whose locations are not clear. Israel has communicated that information to the Red Cross.

“There may be some bodies that require an operation to retrieve them from underground, and there are others whose burial sites Hamas may not know—but the majority could be returned right now,” the official claimed. 

The Post cited another Israeli “senior political source” who said that Israel “won’t wait forever.” 

“We want to see progress,” the official stated. “President Trump gave Hamas a 48-hour ultimatum to make some kind of advancement on the issue of returning the bodies of the kidnapped victims—and we will take action if, in the end, Hamas fails to move forward on this matter.” 

The U.S. has resisted any effort by Israel to impose sanctions on Hamas for failing to uphold its part of the agreement, and even President Trump’s statements appearing to threaten Hamas lack any clear statement of consequences. 

U.S. officials have previously said that they will not allow the ceasefire deal to collapse. However, President Trump has also stated that he would consider allowing Israel to act against Hamas, if the group does not uphold its side of the agreement.