Newsletters
Türkiye has sent 81 disaster relief experts to the Gaza Strip, with one team dedicated to helping find the remains of 19 hostages still unaccounted for, a Defense Ministry source speaking to Agence France-Presse (AFP) said on Thursday.
"There is already a team of 81 AFAD staff there," the source said, referring to Türkiye's disaster relief agency. The source indicated that "one team will be in charge of seeking and finding the bodies."
"The tasks are known: transmitting humanitarian aid, finding corpses and protecting the ceasefire. But there is no clear information on how to handle these tasks," the ministry source added.
Asked whether Turkish military forces could get involved, the source said it would be "more the task of civilian entities like AFAD" but in theory the military could help out if needed.
The deployment has received Israeli approval despite long-running tensions between President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to three people briefed on the situation speaking to the Financial Times (FT) on Thursday.
Türkiye is set to deploy personnel into Gaza to aid the emergency response and conduct search and rescue missions, including for deceased Israeli hostages, as part of the U.S.-backed ceasefire deal that came into effect last week.
Türkiye will be part of a multinational task force that also includes the U.S., Israel, Egypt, Qatar and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), aiming to locate the remaining 19 deceased Israeli and foreign hostages.
The multinational task force is headed by Israeli Brigadier Gal Hirsh, who is expected to facilitate the entry into Gaza of experts and, if necessary, specialised heavy equipment, according to an Israeli official speaking to FT.
An Israeli official confirmed Türkiye's involvement, saying: "Contacts are taking place and co-ordination is being carried out between Israel and the mediators and the Red Cross."
Türkiye's Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) is sending more than 80 specialists with experience in earthquake response. The team will also help with debris removal and the establishment of temporary shelters for the enclave's 2 million people, according to local media reports.
The team is set to travel to Egypt and, pending final orders from the Turkish government, then on to Gaza.
The deployment comes as Israeli officials have accused Hamas of violating the first phase of U.S. President Donald Trump's ceasefire plan by not returning all 28 corpses of hostages held in Gaza "quickly enough."
Since Trump's plan came into effect on October 10, Hamas has freed the remaining 20 living Israeli hostages it held and has returned the bodies of nine others who either died in captivity due to Israeli airstrikes or were killed in the group's October 7, 2023, attack.
Hamas said Wednesday (October 15) that it "has fulfilled its commitment to the agreement by handing over all living Israeli prisoners in its custody, as well as the corpses it could access." But the group said retrieval of the remaining bodies requires "extensive efforts and special equipment," an assessment supported by U.S. officials.
Two of Trump's senior advisers played down Israel's concerns on Wednesday. One said the recovery of the bodies was "pretty much going in line with the expectations that we had."
"The entire Gaza strip has been pulverised," a second senior U.S. administration adviser said, describing the level of destruction.
The adviser added: "the level of debris" in Gaza "feels like multiple times more" than that at New York's World Trade Center following the attacks of September 11, 2001. "On top of all that debris is a lot of unexploded ordnance and, presumably, under that unexploded ordnance and that debris, there are many bodies," the adviser said.
A "huge effort" is under way to relay intelligence on the suspected locations of different bodies, the adviser added. "but we need more resources" to recover them, the adviser said.
The Gaza ceasefire deal that was concluded last week in Egypt envisioned a first phase in which all Israeli hostages would be returned, nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners released from Israeli jails, and a partial pullback of Israeli forces inside Gaza.
A second phase, yet to be negotiated, would include Hamas' disarmament, a new postwar governance system for Gaza supervised by an international board, the deployment of a multinational peacekeeping force, and an Israeli military withdrawal.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz threatened on late Wednesday to restart the war if Hamas failed to return all the deceased hostages and refused to disarm.
1 min read
3 min read
