How Abu Kabir identifies slain hostages — and the day Yahya Sinwar was ID’d

The institute has maintained “100% success” in identifying victims from the October 7 massacre and deceased hostages, an achievement built on layered methods, meticulous documentation, and cross-checks.

By Jewish Breaking News

The man at the center of Israel’s most sensitive work, Dr. Chen Kugel, opened a rare window into how his team at the National Center of Forensic Medicine (Abu Kabir) identifies slain hostages and reconstructs their last moments.

In a new interview, the institute’s director also recounted the day he examined and confirmed the death of Hamas terror leader Yahya Sinwar.

The path begins long before the lab: remains are handed to the International Committee of the Red Cross, then transferred to Israeli authorities and escorted to Abu Kabir under strict chain-of-custody.

There, teams start with full-body CT imaging, radiology review, and external examination; they proceed to dental comparison and DNA extraction when needed.

The institute stresses speed with certainty: “We want to understand what happened” and deliver “full information” to families, Dr. Kugel has said, while cautioning that complex cases can still take days.

Another core principle he repeats to staff: “zero mistakes.”

What looks like a single door marked “forensics” is actually a multidisciplinary operation.

Alongside pathologists are radiologists, odontologists (dental ID), DNA specialists, anthropologists, lab technicians, and clinical forensic teams coordinating with the IDF, Police, the Military Rabbinate, and the Health Ministry.

Dr. Ricardo Nachman leads the clinical unit that knits findings into an identification and a cause-of-death assessment.

According to Kugel, the institute has maintained “100% success” in identifying victims from the October 7 massacre and deceased hostages brought since — an achievement built on layered methods, meticulous documentation, and cross-checks.

Kugel also described a singular moment in the war’s forensic record: the autopsy confirming Sinwar’s death.

He told Israeli media Sinwar died of a gunshot to the head; earlier injury to the arm suggested shrapnel trauma that led him to attempt a makeshift tourniquet.

“Once you’re with the body and examining it, you don’t think about anything else,” Kugel said, explaining the professional detachment required for precision even with a figure responsible for mass murder.

The finding matters because it resolves contested narratives around how the terrorist leader died and anchors the record in medical fact.

Recent transfers of remains have underscored both the urgency and the difficulty. The ICRC says it is facilitating returns amid rubble, tunnels, and booby-trapped sites — a “massive challenge” that can slow recovery and handover.

Arabic-language outlets have chronicled Red Cross movements with Hamas in Rafah and deliveries at Kerem Shalom, after which Israeli police escort the coffins directly to Abu Kabir for identification.

These logistics explain why some handovers advance in batches and why precise identifications are announced only after the lab reaches absolute certainty and the family is notified.

Inside the lab, timelines vary. Straightforward matches — intact dentition and accessible medical records — can be concluded within hours.

Fragmented remains, fire damage, or commingling can extend the work: analysts correlate CT findings with past injuries, compare dental micro-features, and run mitochondrial and nuclear DNA across multiple reference swabs.

Every step is double-read; nothing moves without a second pair of eyes. Only when the science is unanimous does Abu Kabir transmit the conclusion to the Health Ministry and security authorities — and only then do casualty officers brief the family, often with Kugel present to answer technical questions.

This is the grind of dignity: an Israeli state promise, fulfilled by scientists, that even in the ugliest terrain the truth can be retrieved and named.

It is why Kugel still speaks plainly to his staff and to the country: the fallen are individuals, not case files, and the work is for their families.

“The families are foremost in our minds,” he has said. That ethic — speed where possible, patience where necessary, and perfection always — is how Abu Kabir closes circles that terrorists tried to sever.