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Israeli Archaeologists Help Identify Human Remains in Israeli Communities
(Ha'aretz) Ruth Schuster - Israeli archaeologists with the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) have joined the effort to locate human remains in burned ruins in Israeli communities bordering Gaza following the Hamas assault on Oct. 7. The terrorists burned many homes to the ground. High heat renders human remains not only unidentifiable but unrecognizable to amateur eyes. Archaeologists, however, routinely detect and identify skeletal remains following conflagration. IAA director Eli Escusido told Ha'aretz, "A week ago, the commander of the Home Front Command called and explained that they suspect that a lot of the people still counted as missing may have been in houses that burned down....'We know archaeologists are trained in digging and identifying bones and other things. We want you to come and examine the burned houses.'" Escusido assembled a team of 20 IAA archaeologists. Starting in Kfar Aza, "we immediately found one," he said. "We searched a house where a missing woman had lived....We found human remains, with rings and necklaces that had been hers....We went through all the homes at Kibbutz Be'eri, Kibbutz Nir Oz, Kissufim - all the kibbutzim, including buildings where Thai workers had lived. We found the remains of nearly 40 people." The archaeologists are also helping to find human remains in burned-out vehicles. Underneath one destroyed ambulance at the rave party, the team identified five bodies. In fire-gutted cars near the fence between Gaza and Israel, they found seven more.