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Last missing person from October 7 declared dead

It took ten months for the evidence to be found that Bilha Yinon was burned to death along with her husband in Netiv HaAsara.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

The last missing person from Hamas’ October 7 invasion and murder spree in Israel has been declared dead.

On Tuesday, the IDF informed the family of Bilha Yinon that after an extensive investigation that lasted ten months, they could definitively say that their beloved mother and grandmother had been murdered by the terrorists and not kidnapped into Gaza.

The evidence was found in the area of Yinon’s house in Moshav Netiv HaAsara, which the terrorists had burned to the ground.

Being made of wood, there were only ashes left, but the DNA of her husband Yaakov had been discovered among them and Bilha had been declared dead as it was known that they had been together.

The family had mourned as per Jewish law, but then doubt was expressed regarding Bilha and the IDF began a search together with arson specialists and even archeologists.

Daughter Mor said that while “it is a closing of the circle for some of the children and grandchildren, it’s less for us,” because the family had really had “no doubt” that their parents had been murdered together.

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“The army, for its part, continued to look for evidence of this, and a few weeks ago they discovered new findings near our parent’s house – two of mother’s teeth which were unequivocally identified,” she said.

“It still surprised us that after ten months teeth are found in a place where we have already cleaned and cleared the ruins,” she added. “We’ve been there many times. They were constantly looking for finds, archaeologists from the Antiquities Authority and biologists were also looking, but I didn’t expect that they would find anything new.”

Arson detective Erez Shatir told Ynet in May that the initial investigator had thought the fire had been set inside the safe room where Bilha had been hiding, so that was where the search had concentrated.

The specialist found that the pattern of the fire and soot showed that that the safe room door and window had been closed, and the intensity of the fire was less inside than out, with some objects in the house not being burned at all.

These and other factors pointed to the terrorists having set it alight from the outside, he said, and the focus was moved to find any kind of remains in the area around the home.

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After the teeth were identified, an expert committee of the Ministry of Health, together with representatives of the IDF investigation team, the National Institute of Forensic Medicine, the Israel Police and Israeli Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef then conclusively determined Yinon’s death.

“The IDF sends its heartfelt condolences to the Yinon family and to the entire community of Netiv HaAsara,” the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit stated.

The official death toll for the moshav now stands at 22 members, victims of Hamas terrorists who went from house to house shooting families and burning homes starting at 6:29 in the morning of October 7.