Five months after October 7th invasion, search teams still finding bodies

Search and rescue dogs used to help IDF’s recovery operation in Gaza border area still finding human remains – 5 months after the October 7th massacres.

By World Israel News Staff

Search and rescue teams working to locate the remains of Israeli victims murdered during the October 7th invasion, as well as Gaza terrorists killed in the early days of the war, are still finding body parts in the Gaza frontier, five months after the war began.

According to a report by Yedioth Aharanoth, teams working with search and rescue dogs trained by the Nature and Parks Authority to aid the IDF in scouring areas near the Gaza frontier continue to find fragmentary human remains, with body parts recently discovered near Kibbutz Be’eri – the scene of one of October 7th’s largest massacres – and Kissufim.

The remains found are often small, said the Nature and Parks’ Authority’s Ilan Jaeger.

“Sometimes, the size of the remains is less than a centimeter. These are skills that no other dogs have in the country. Using them, we reached a resolution that retrospectively serves us for this sacred mission,” he added.

“Despite the long time that passed and the many forces that have already scanned these areas, we located new findings quickly. In the initial scans, the dogs managed to find human remains 200 meters from one of the communities close to the Gaza border.”

“Stained shirts were also found, which help in identifying DNA. We mark every finding we come across before the forces collect them. People need to understand – it’s not over.”

Dogs are not the only animals recruited by the IDF to locate human remains after October 7th.

In the weeks immediately following the invasion and subsequent massacres, search teams monitored the activity of vultures to track down human remains, even tagging some of the birds to follow their movements.

Multiple dog search and rescue teams were enlisted for the searches, including not only the IDF’s own Oketz canine units and the Nature and Parks Authority’s dogs but also the Israel Dog Unit, a private organization based in Samaria.

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