A joint multinational task force will be established to locate the bodies of Israeli hostages in the Gaza Strip whose locations are unknown, according to multiple reports on Thursday.
Turkey will take part in the task force, alongside Israel, the United States, Qatar, and Egypt, a senior Turkish official said.
Turkish officials took part in negotiations in Egypt that resulted in a ceasefire and hostage deal earlier, joining the US, Egypt, and Qatar as mediators.
The formation of the task force was agreed upon during mediated negotiations in Sharm el-Sheik, Egypt, that led to an agreement for a ceasefire and hostage release announced overnight by US President Donald Trump, reports said.
Terror groups in the Gaza Strip are holding 48 hostages, including 47 of the 251 abducted by Hamas-led terrorists on October 7, 2023. They include the bodies of at least 26 confirmed dead by the IDF. Twenty are believed to be alive and there are grave concerns for the well-being of two others, Israeli officials have said. Among the bodies held by Hamas is that of an IDF soldier killed in Gaza in 2014.
Under the terms of Trump’s plan, all of the hostages are supposed to be returned to Israel within 72 hours of the ceasefire coming into effect.
However, during the negotiations, Hamas told mediators and Israel that it does not know the location of some deceased hostages. The terror group said it will struggle to meet the 72-hour deadline for all of the hostages, and Israel is aware of this but believes all of the bodies will eventually be returned, Haaretz reported.
Although Israel has said that the return of all of the hostages is a critical part of the agreement, the process of finding those who are missing is expected to take some time.
“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,” government hostage point man Gal Hirsch told Haaretz.
Aside from halting the war, in exchange for the hostages Israel will also release hundreds of Palestinian security prisoners, including many who were convicted of deadly terror attacks on Israelis.
Three Israeli officials confirmed to CNN on Wednesday that Hamas might not be able to find all the dead hostages. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has known for months that this is the case, according to the officials.
One official said that seven to nine bodies might not be retrieved, while another put that figure at between 10 and 15. The assessments are based on Israeli intelligence and information that is coming out of the talks in Egypt, the report said, though there is no way to know the exact figure.
The Times of Israel previously reported that the terror group has, in the past, told mediators it does not know where some of the bodies of dead hostages are located.
Hamas released 30 hostages — 20 Israeli civilians, five soldiers, and five Thai nationals — and the bodies of eight slain Israeli captives during a ceasefire between January and March 2025, and one additional hostage, a dual American-Israeli citizen, in May 2025 as a “gesture” to the United States. The terror group freed 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November 2023, and four hostages were released before that in the early weeks of the war. In exchange, Israel has freed some 2,000 jailed Palestinian terrorists, security prisoners, and Gazan terror suspects detained during the war.
Eight hostages have been rescued from captivity by troops alive, and the bodies of 51 have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the Israeli military as they tried to escape their captors, and the body of a soldier who was killed in 2014.