A multinational task force including Israel, the United States, Turkey, Egypt, and Qatar will be established to locate the bodies of Israeli hostages still missing in the Gaza Strip.

The formation of the joint mission was finalized during the Sharm el-Sheikh negotiations in Egypt, where U.S., Qatari, Egyptian, and Turkish mediators secured the landmark agreement that halted nearly two years of war between Israel and Hamas. The task force’s mandate will be to find and recover the bodies of hostages whose locations remain unknown, including those believed to have been buried under Gaza’s vast network of tunnels and rubble.

A senior Turkish official said Ankara would participate directly in the operation, underscoring Turkey’s expanding diplomatic role in post-war Gaza reconstruction and mediation efforts.

“Since we expect there to be difficulties, we acted to set up an international task force that will have everything needed, including information and resources, to return the hostages to Israel,” said Gal Hirsch, Israel’s special coordinator for hostage affairs.

48 hostages remain in Gaza, including 47 from the original 251 people abducted during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 massacre. The IDF has confirmed at least 26 are dead, with 20 believed alive and two in critical condition or unaccounted for. Among those held is the body of an Israeli soldier killed during the 2014 Gaza war, whose remains Hamas has long refused to return.

Under the terms of President Donald Trump’s ceasefire plan, all hostages — living and dead — are to be returned within 72 hours of the truce’s implementation, which began on Friday. But Hamas has told mediators that it does not know the whereabouts of several deceased captives, complicating its ability to meet that deadline.

“Some of the bodies may have been lost in collapsed tunnels or handed to unaffiliated groups,” one Israeli official told CNN, noting that intelligence assessments suggest seven to fifteen bodies may remain unaccounted for. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been aware of the situation “for months,” officials added.

The new task force will combine forensic, intelligence, and engineering teams from the participating nations, supported by data from Israel’s military intelligence and Shin Bet. Officials said the mission will work closely with Egyptian border authorities and international humanitarian groups to coordinate search areas.

The effort represents a rare operational collaboration between Israel and Turkey, whose diplomatic ties have been strained for over a decade, and comes amid deep skepticism in Israel about Hamas’s willingness or ability to cooperate.

The initiative also reflects the complex realities of the ceasefire deal — hailed by Washington as a diplomatic breakthrough but still fraught with logistical and moral challenges.

Israel’s experience with hostage recovery has been agonizingly slow. Between January and March 2025, Hamas released 30 captives — including 20 Israeli civilians, five soldiers, and five Thai nationals — along with the bodies of eight slain Israelis. One additional hostage, a dual American-Israeli citizen, was freed in May as a “gesture” to the U.S.

Those releases followed a weeklong truce in November 2023, when 105 civilians were freed, and an earlier period in which four hostages were released shortly after the war began.

So far, eight hostages have been rescued alive in Israeli operations, while the bodies of 51 others have been recovered — among them three captives mistakenly killed by IDF troops during an escape attempt.

Officials said the task force will begin work “immediately” and will operate under joint supervision by the U.S. Central Command and IDF. In addition to recovery operations, the mission will coordinate information-sharing ahead of the second phase of the ceasefire deal — the disarmament of Hamas and establishment of a transitional civilian administration in Gaza.

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