About 1,400 people were killed in Hamas attacks on Israel (file photo).
Jerusalem:
Eagles and vultures are being used to search for the bodies of those killed in Hamas attacks in Israel. A wildlife expert involved in the project said the data from the carnivorous birds was helping the Israeli military locate carcasses around the sites of the October 7 attacks by Hamas operatives. Eagles, vultures and other birds of prey equipped with tracking devices have played a role in the search for human remains, said Ohad Hatzofe of Israel’s Nature and Parks Authority.
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“When the war started, some reservists serving in that unit approached me. They asked me if my birds could help,” said Ohad Hatzofe. The idea came from EITAN, a unit of the Army’s Human Resources Branch. This unit has the responsibility of searching for missing soldiers.
Hatzoff leads a program that monitors the endangered griffon vulture. Vultures of this species mainly eat dead animals. Eagles and other birds of prey also eat meat. Under the programme, hundreds of birds have been tagged with GPS trackers to study their migration patterns, feeding habits and environmental threats they face.
A rare sea eagle that returned to Israeli skies on October 23 after spending the summer in northern Russia. It was found near Biri outside the Gaza Strip.
“I have sent my data to the army,” said Hatzoffe. “They went to confirm it and recovered four bodies,” he said. They could not say much about the location or identity of the bodies.
Biri is home to a kibbutz agricultural community that resulted in the deaths of 85 people. The deaths occurred in cross-border attacks by Hamas. More than 1,400 people, mostly civilians, were killed in the attack, according to Israeli officials. Hamas took about 240 hostages during the attack in Biri while 30 others are missing.
Data from another bird, the bonelli’s eagle, made it possible to recover “other bodies inside Israel,” Hatzoff said. Israeli police said on Monday that they had identified the bodies of a total of 843 civilians and 351 soldiers.
A month has passed since the Hamas attack but dozens of missing Israelis have not been found.