Turkey says its disaster response team awaiting Israeli approval to enter Gaza

Turkish defence ministry on Thursday said that its disaster response team is still waiting by the Gaza border for Israeli approval to enter for search and rescue operations, Al Jazeera reported, quoting an official. 

“AFAD is still waiting at the border. Israel still did not issue any authorisation” for the team to enter, the source said, referring to Turkey's disaster relief agency, which is waiting on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing with a team of 81 specialists.

On 16 October, Turkey offered an expert team specialising in body retrieval, based on their experience with earthquake recovery, US officials said. 

"Just recently, we had Turkey call us up on the phone because they have an 81-man team that is as expert as there is in body retrieval … We think we're going to bring them in with a lot of other people as well," one adviser said.

Advisers also confirmed plans to establish a reward programme in Gaza: "We're probably going to put together some sort of programme where we're going to ask people to see if they can help us to locate bodies, and we're going to pay rewards for that type of good behaviour."