Eye in sky: How birds of prey are being used to find bodies of massacre victims

Many victims of the Hamas massacre in southern Israel on October 7th were murdered while attempting to escape the onslaught. As a result, their bodies were lost, spread out in fields and hiding places in the area. Because of this, the IDF's Missing Soldier Location Unit continues, one month later, to search for the remains of the victims of the massacre.

According to a report by Israel Hayom, JNF-KKL employee Lt. Col. (Res.) Nissim Magnagi, who was drafted for reserve duty and was working with the unit, thought of an idea to facilitate the search: finding large gatherings of birds of prey in the areas of the massacre. The unit commander was impressed by the idea and reached out to the relevant authorities to assist him with the unusual tracking of the birds of prey in the area.

"During the winter, tens of thousands of birds of prey migrate to Israel and come to all areas, including the Gaza envelope," Yaron Charka, JNF-KKL's head bird watcher, explained to Israel Hayom. "Although the area is experiencing combat and it is not the most comfortable thing for these birds, many of them still come to the area, which creates an actual potential to find the location of bodies by tracking the birds."

Charka explained that the location of bodies in this manner is done by patrolling the field and identifying locations with an outstanding gathering of birds. "In one case, it was possible to identify a body due to the fact that the bird that was near it was carrying a GPS tracker, and that's how we saw that it was staying in one area for a long time. Since such a tracker is very expensive, only a few birds of prey carry them, and therefore, JNF-KKL and the Nature and Parks Authority's work is simply to find places where there is a large gathering of birds of prey," he explained. "These birds have very good vision, and when they see a carcass or a group of other birds, they go to that place. All you have to do is patrol the area to look for substantial activities of birds on the ground or in the air, and that way, locate the location of a body."

Some of the bodies that were located in this manner belonged to Hamas terrorists, but it is highly important since several bodies of Israelis were also found in this manner and were later identified and buried. "In many cases, we can not find the bodies on the ground, especially if they are hidden or in places where we wouldn't think they would be, but the sharp vision of the birds of prey, which fly high in the air, help us a lot," Charka concludes.