How Israel is struggling to identify the victims of Hamas attacks

Trucks carrying dead bodies from Gaza border villages continue to arrive at the Shura military facility near Ramla. Many of those killed were civilians who were massacred during the attacks on Saturday. According to Reuters, some 1,300 bodies have been carried to Ramla, where professional teams are working intensively to ascertain the identities of the deceased and the circumstances of their deaths, revealing distressing evidence of torture, rape, and other terrible deeds. “Families wait outside for hours. Some give up after 24 hours after realising that it takes time,” a professional working at the centre told Israel’s Haaretz News. The bodies are transported to a vast, purpose-built facility built by the state, primarily for the identification of large numbers of dead service men. “No one in Israel imagined that such a large facility would be required,” a volunteer at the centre told the news website. Around 90 per cent of the military dead have been identified and teams are half way through identifying civilians, former army chief and one of the officials overseeing the identification of the dead, Rabbi Israel Weiss told Reuters. Hundreds of bodies wait to be identified When Rabbi Israel Weiss opens the doors of the refrigerated containers holding the bodies of hundreds of victims of the Hamas attacks the smell is overwhelming, but he said that most of all, he feels the suffering. In graphics | A brief history of the Israel-Palestine conflict The former military chief rabbi came out of retirement to become one of the leaders of an Israeli operation to identify the more than 1,400 dead from the raids by Hamas fighters on 7 October that have plunged the rivals into a new war. Teams of doctors, dentists, forensic experts and volunteers are working around the clock to identify bodies that were still arriving at the Shura military base, near the central town of Ramla, on Sunday, eight days after the attacks. Four other centres are carrying out similar work, officials said. [caption id=“attachment_13253462” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] An Israeli soldier walks next to a damaged vehicle, in the aftermath of a mass infiltration by Hamas gunmen from the Gaza Strip, in Kibbutz Beeri in southern Israel. Reuters[/caption] Hundreds of bodies waiting to be identified or to be taken for burial are stored in containers lined up in the base next to a tent where the teams work. Parts of the identification operation at Shura were shown to reporters on Sunday as Israel steps up preparations for an expected invasion of Gaza. Masks have to be worn when the container doors are open because of the overpowering smell of death. Also Read: Why Israel is using ice cream trucks to store the dead “I open the door to the cooling containers, I see the bodies I smell the odour, I let it fill my lungs and my heart but what I feel is their pain and the loss,” said the rabbi. Infant victims Weiss and other staff at the identification centre said that there were signs that many of the victims had been tortured, raped or abused. Also Read: Horror of Hamas: Inside the Israeli kibbutz where children and women were beheaded “Never in my life have I seen horrors that are behind us today,” he said stood in front of some of the containers, with each holding up to 50 bodies. “I have seen babies, women and men beheaded. I have seen a pregnant woman with her belly torn open and the baby cut out,” he alleged. “A lot of the women who were brought here were raped,” Weiss added. [caption id=“attachment_13253452” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] A dead body lies on the ground following a mass infiltration by Hamas gunmen from the Gaza Strip, in Kibbutz Beeri in southern Israel. Reuters[/caption] Hamas, who lost an estimated 1,500 fighters in the attacks, has dismissed allegations that those killed in the attacks were abused. The Israeli government has already said that some children were tied up and burned and some victims were hiding in air raid shelters that Hamas fighters threw grenades into. DNA samples, fingerprints and dental records are all used to identify the victims. Almost 90 per cent of the 286 soldiers killed in eight days have been identified, but barely half of the civilians, officials said. Horrific sights Senior Staff Sergeant Avigayil, who gave only a first name, told reporters there were signs that some of the bodies had been booby trapped. “Nothing has prepared us for this,” she said, when recounting the abuse of the bodies those volunteers had seen. Also Read: They took my wife and daughters’: The horror stories of Hamas violence Like the sergeant, Captain Maayan, a dentist and reservist taking part in the identification, broke down in tears as she told of the harrowing process. “We see horrific sights,” she said also telling of signs of torture and abuse. “We hear the screams and the cries of the babies losing their parents.” Mayaan said one victim she had identified had been a patient at the Tel Aviv clinic where she works. In graphics : What is Israel’s military strength? What weapons does it use? Psychologists and social workers are also taking part to help the identification teams at the end of each day. But the military, who say there are at least 126 people held hostage by Hamas in Gaza, has warned that it could take weeks to get complete figures on the number of victims and put a name to each one. With inputs from AFP