Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday asserted his veto power over the members of the international force tasked with securing post-war Gaza, which his American ally is trying to establish.

As proof of this desire to control who has access to Palestinian territory, Israel allowed an Egyptian convoy to enter Gaza this weekend to help recover the remains of hostages kidnapped by Hamas.

"We are an independent state," Netanyahu insisted Sunday during a government meeting, specifying that Israel would have a right of veto over the members of the international force.

"Our security policy is in our hands," said the Prime Minister, who opposed the deployment of Turkish troops in this future force, as Ankara had welcomed Hamas leaders.

On October 17, a Turkish official announced that a rescue team intended to search for bodies was waiting to enter Palestinian territory. The Turks ultimately did not receive a green light from Israel.

Egyptian convoy

However, during the night from Saturday to Sunday, Egyptian vehicles and trucks carrying heavy construction equipment entered the Gaza Strip, according to an AFPTV reporter, with a view to speeding up the search for the remaining 13 hostage remains.

The convoy headed to Al-Zawayda, in the central Gaza Strip, to the headquarters of the Egyptian Gaza Committee, where it will be based. This organization works in coordination with the Egyptian Red Crescent.

Under the ceasefire, Hamas handed over on October 13, in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, the 20 hostages it had been holding alive in Gaza since the deadly attack it carried out on October 7, 2023, in Israel that triggered the war.

Israel has so far recovered only 15 of the 28 hostage remains that Hamas had pledged to return within the same period. The Palestinian movement says it needs more equipment and more time to recover the remains, it says, from the rubble.

"We will not give the (Israeli) occupation an excuse to resume the war (...) new areas will be accessible on Sunday to search for some of the bodies of the occupation's prisoners," its chief negotiator, Khalil al-Hayya, said on Saturday evening.

Mr. al-Hayya, however, complained that Israel "continues to block the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza." "Violations (of the ceasefire agreement's provisions) are worrying people and threatening the stability of the agreement," he said.

"Israel will decide"

On Thursday in Ankara, a source from the Turkish Ministry of Defense confirmed that discussions were underway regarding the participation of the Turkish army in a peacekeeping mission in the Gaza Strip.

But US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Friday that the composition of the peacekeeping force would be subject to Israeli veto power. "It will have to be people or countries with which Israel feels comfortable," Rubio assured, thus allowing Israel to oppose Turkey's presence in Gaza.

"We have (...) made it clear to international forces that Israel will decide which forces are unacceptable to us," the Prime Minister recalled on Sunday in Jerusalem.

For their part, the Palestinian movements meeting in Cairo this week affirmed, in a joint statement, "the importance of adopting a United Nations resolution concerning international forces" in Gaza.

With a view to a ceasefire, the "New York Declaration" prepared by France and Saudi Arabia and adopted by an overwhelming majority of the UN General Assembly, provides for the deployment under the auspices of the UN of a "temporary international stabilization mission" in Gaza.

Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, whose country does not have official relations with Israel, unlike Egypt and Turkey, has assured that he is ready to send troops to participate.