The charred remains were so disfigured that they initially didn’t realize they were two people.
But as pathologists carefully began examining them, they could see that the bodies were those of an adult and a child. And they hugged each other tightly.
That’s how it ended for her, trapped in a room while Hamas terrorists set fire to her house. As the terror of burning overwhelmed them, the adult had no choice but to hold the frightened child in her arms.
And as unbearable as this is, it is by no means an isolated case here at Israel’s National Center for Forensic Medicine, where the bodies of the victims of the Hamas attack are being identified. Scientists tasked with this grim task told me that it was common practice to have to carefully separate the fused remains of two helpless people who, in their final moments, had found only an embrace in death.
No wonder several professional pathologists burst into tears yesterday as they tried to explain their vital work to me.
The Israeli Ministry of Health and Foreign Ministry allows the press access to the site where the bodies of the murdered are being examined and identified
As pathologists carefully began their examination, they could see that the bodies were those of an adult and a child. And they hugged each other tightly
Of the 959 bodies brought to Shura military base so far, the ones that are hardest to identify are being taken to the forensic center here in Tel Aviv, where teams of scientists are working around the clock to find out who they are
This is the real-life version of Silent Witness, the television drama about pathology experts who gather forensic clues to solve a case.
Of the 959 bodies brought to Shura military base so far, the ones that are hardest to identify are being taken to the forensic center here in Tel Aviv, where teams of scientists are working around the clock to find out who they are.
They are keenly aware that the tormented families of the missing are beyond desperate – they just need to know.
The work itself could hardly be more upsetting. Some victims were shot and then set on fire, others were tied with wire cords and sentenced to burning hell.
As of yesterday, there were 297 corpses that had been so horribly abused that they were unrecognizable to anyone. It is the pathetic job of these pathologists to find out.
Sometimes just a few bone fragments are enough. That’s literally all that’s left of someone.
Chen Kugel, director of the center, showed me a pile of bones. “There are several people in there,” he said. “Just parts of a skull.” A cheekbone. This is all that’s left of them. Their bodies are gone.’
He showed me photos of a man who was shot from behind. “You can tell from his wrist prints that he was handcuffed behind his back and then executed.”
And then the completely unbearable thing happened. Dr. Kugel cried as he described how they had received remains so disfigured that they had to do a CT scan to understand they were two bodies. A big one, a small one.
When he showed me the scan he said: “You can tell by the shape of their spine that it’s an adult and a child and they’re sitting together hugging each other tightly.”
“In their final moments.” They were burned this way. Cremated alive in their own home, holding each other.’
Dr. Kugel, a forensic pathologist for 31 years, kept pausing to take deep breaths but couldn’t hold back his tears.
“This is heartbreaking and difficult to see, even for people like me who have been doing this for so many years,” he said.
Everywhere I looked when I toured that morgue yesterday was a vision of hell. The sight is too shocking to describe, and the foul stench of death will stay with me for days. Many of the slaughtered innocents have gunshot wounds on their hands as they tried in vain to defend themselves from the bullets.
Dr. Kugel said, “It’s terrible.” It’s so big. And there are so many containers – it’s like a shipping port – and they’re all full of bodies. It’s so terrible. So many…it’s the level of cruelty.”
His team’s job is to identify the victims so that their distraught families can be informed as quickly as possible and the cause of death can be determined.
Dr. Nurit BuBlil shows a child’s mattress stained with blood in the laboratory where corpses are identified
In the picture is the head of a DNA laboratory, Dr. Nurit BuBlil, seen being comforted by a colleague while holding a blood-stained mattress
Kibbutz Be’eri, located 4 km from the Gaza border, was attacked by Hamas militants last Saturday, October 7th – reporter Sam Greenhill is pictured at the scene
This is the real-life version of Silent Witness, the television drama about pathology experts who gather forensic clues to solve a case
Mortuary workers stand over the body of a person being carried on a stretcher
Dr. BuBlil cries while she and a colleague show the mattress of a murdered child
Health workers in scrubs pull a cart with a body on it as they search for people
He said soot in a person’s trachea indicated they were still alive and had inhaled smoke – meaning they had died from fire, not a weapon.
“We do CT scans, biopsies, we check DNA and fingerprints – whether there are any fingers left – and any clues we can find,” he said.
“But we are now dealing with the most difficult cases to solve.” I fear that there will be some people we will never identify. People have to be prepared for that.”
In every room I visited, exhausted teams were doing their best with blackened bodies, bone fragments, and whatever else they could find. The victims range from the very old to the very young. In a hallway I passed three body bags a third the size of the adult ones.
What about decapitated babies? Yes, said Dr. Bullet, it was true.
Amid unimaginable horrors, an extraordinary debate erupted last week over whether Hamas savages had beheaded defenseless babies or merely shot them. Reports of beheadings have been heavily attacked as fake news by some prominent doubters.
It seems grotesque that we would even try to get to the bottom of the method used to decapitate a baby.
But there are some who refuse to believe that even the most sadistic fanatics of the terrorist group would have committed such evil.
On Saturday I spoke with a colonel who told me that he not only saw a decapitated baby, but also held it in his arms as he took the child from a slaughter site on Kibbutz Be’eri. Yesterday, with a heavy heart, I met Dr. Kugel, perhaps Israel’s oldest pathologist, asked whether he had seen babies without heads. He replied, “Yes.” “Yes, I saw that.”
He didn’t know why they had no heads and couldn’t tell whether they had been cut off with a knife or blown away by an exploding grenade. He said, ‘I can’t say.’ I can say I saw people without heads.’
However it happened, the toll on the scientists whose search for facts leaves them unable to look away from this unspeakable horror is all too evident.
During a much-needed break to get some fresh air outside, Dr. Kugel: “We work there in the world of the dead.” But when I come out here, into the living world, and I’m talking to you and the sun is shining, it’s like normal… except it’s not.’
Dr. BuBlil sobs as she is comforted in the lab where bodies are being identified
Employees stand next to a stretcher on which the body of a murdered man lies
Employees stand next to a stretcher on which the body of a murdered man lies
A sea of corpses can be seen as stretchers pile up waiting for the bodies to be identified
You can see a series of stretchers on which the bodies of the deceased lie
Somewhere in every fragment of charred and twisted body part lies an important forensic clue that could bring a grim conclusion to a family trapped in hellish limbo, not knowing whether their loved one is dead, kidnapped, or wandering lost and injured. Dr. Ricardo Nachman, head of forensics at the center, said: “In a body bag we found three left feet and one right foot.” “So we know that at least three people died together.” Elsewhere they could find one person – in more as a bag.
Up in the DNA lab, they examine the smallest fragments to identify the owner.
Laboratory manager Dr. Nurit Bublil told me: “We are doing everything we can.” For badly burned samples, it can take days to create a genetic profile. We know families are waiting. Hopefully we can get everyone back home.
“Many people work day and night. We want to bring the answers to their families. They want to have the funerals, but they also want to know what happened and how their loved one died. The investigation takes time. We have the professionalism to do it. And we want to do it.’
She said the Hamas terrorists “went to Israel and had fun slaughtering civilians. That was an inhumane act.” Her job, she explained, was to “work and cry at the same time.” She wasn’t wrong. Dr. Bublil spoke to me next to a small, blood-soaked mattress. She picked it up to show me: “This is a mattress from a baby bed.” “You can see the size of this blood stain – meaning this baby bled on this bed.”
There were no more words. She kept trying, but there was nothing else to say. Dazed and desperate, Dr. Bublil walked through her lab to her colleague and burst into tears.