Israelis medical professionals are having a very hard time identifying some of the bodies of the Israelis massacred on October 7 by invading hordes of Hamas terrorists from Gaza.
The Israeli National Center of Forensic Medicine of the Ministry of Health has been operating tirelessly over the past two weeks as its experts confront the overwhelming numbers, cruelty, and brutality of casualties resulting from the attack of Hamas terrorists from the Gaza Strip.
Since the commencement of hostilities, the Center has treated 870 bodies. But hundreds more remain, pending identification.
The scope of this task, unparalleled in its scale and complexity, has pushed the Center’s capabilities to the limit.
Medical personnel at the Center have been working around the clock to identify victims and provide closure to grieving families.
In addition to the Center’s regular staff, volunteer forensic experts from the US, New Zealand, and Switzerland operate seven days a week to identify the more than 1,400 victims who were brutally murdered in the attack that the Hamas terrorist organization launched on Israeli towns along the Gaza border on that Saturday, Shabbat Simchat Torah.
In addition to the immense number of casualties, the nature of the killings has posed a significant challenge for identification.
Hamas terrorists employed numerous gruesome methods, including shooting, stabbing, axing, burning, decapitation, dismembering and other means, making identification extremely difficult. Some bodies were so severely mutilated and brutalized that they could not be identified.
Dr. Hagar Mizrahi, head of the medical division at the Ministry of Health, summarized the first two weeks of the Center’s most daunting task since its opening. “I have been a doctor and surgeon for over twenty years, I have seen difficult scenes in my professional life, I have treated the wounded from terrorist attacks, but I have never encountered such severe horrors as I have encountered since the incident on October 7th. The human soul is unable to cope with the atrocities committed,” he said.
“We, as doctors, get up every morning to save lives. We, as a people, sanctify life. It is clear to me that we, as a nation that rose from the ashes of the extermination camps in the Holocaust, will succeed in rising even now. We will bury the dead. We will take care of those injured both mentally and physically. We will do whatever it takes because this is the only Jewish state.”
Dr. Chen Kugel, Director of the Institute of Forensic Medicine, noted that dozens of volunteers from Israel and around the world came to assist the National Institute of Forensic Medicine, including doctors from Switzerland, The United States of America, and New Zealand.
“We are comforted to see the mobilization of many experts to assist in the national task of caring for and identifying the victims at the National Institute of Forensic Medicine,” Kugel said.
“The process of identifying the victims is sad and very complex. The sights are very hard, and the stories are even harder. We see young and old, women and children, shot in all parts of their bodies, some cuffed, some burned alive, their bodies intertwined, parents hugging their child. Some of them were left with only ashes and tiny fragments of bone. Never, in all my professional life, have I seen such great cruelty and unimaginable evil.”
Dr. Nurit Bobalil, Director of the Forensic Laboratory at the Institute of Forensic Medicine, described the challenges.
“The biological laboratory at the National Institute of Forensic Medicine has so far received about 900 samples originating from bodies or parts of bodies, sampled from innocent Israeli citizens, our brothers and sisters, parents, and children, and for whom DNA identification is required.
“The work process is long and complex because the scope of the samples, and the condition of the bodies, which only gets worse as time goes by, makes it difficult in some cases to get a result in a short time.
“The forensic laboratory team at the National Institute of Forensic Medicine recruited volunteers from the field of clinical genetics who, in combination with advanced technologies, enable the expansion of institute capacities, and thanks to this, the laboratory manages to meet the requirements, without delay and is able to provide the profile data that will be transferred for comparison with the family members’ samples.
“We have never been required to respond to such an event. I never imagined that Israeli children would be found bound and shot in their beds, I never imagined that bound and burned bodies would arrive in large quantities at the Forensic Medicine Institute, and I never imagined that I would see pictures of wrongdoers, serial killers, monsters enjoying the celebration of the murder they brought upon us,” Bobalil added.
Against the backdrop of these tragic events, Israel is currently facing a multifaceted security challenge.
The attack that began on October 7, 2023, when over a thousand Hamas terrorists infiltrated Israel by land, sea, and air at multiple locations near the Gaza Strip, continues.
Simultaneously, indiscriminate rocket fire continues to target towns and cities, with more than 7,600 rockets and missiles launched thus far.
Hamas aims to maximize harm to civilians; more than 1,400 Israelis have been murdered. The IDF also confirmed Monday (Oct. 23) that at least 222 people are being held captive by the terrorist group and its allies in Gaza, and more than 300 IDF soldiers have already died, protecting their friends, family and the Land they loved.
