Data from Birds of prey help the Israeli army find bodies A wildlife expert involved in the program said that the aim of this operation was to identify the sites where the October 7 attack by Hamas activists occurred.
Ohad Hatsov of the Israel Nature and Parks Authority said vultures, vultures and other birds of prey equipped with tracking devices played a role in the search for human remains.
“When the war started, some reservists serving in this unit approached me,” Hadjof said. “They asked me if my birds could help with anything.”
The idea came from Eitan, a unit of the Army’s Human Resources Branch, which is responsible for locating missing soldiers.
Hatgov heads a program to monitor endangered vultures, which feed mainly on dead animals, as well as vultures and other birds of prey, which he said also eat scavengers.
The program has tagged hundreds of birds with GPS trackers to study their migration habits, feeding habits and the environmental threats they face.
On October 23, one of them was found, a rare sea eagle that had returned to the skies of Israel the day before after spending the summer in northern Russia, near Biri, outside the Gaza Strip.
“I sent my data” to the Army, Hagoff said.
He added, “They went to check it and recovered four bodies,” without being able to reveal more about the location or identity of the bodies.
Beri, a rural kibbutz community, found 85 residents dead when Hamas fighters stormed the border, armed with weapons, to carry out the worst attack since Israel’s creation in 1948.
According to Israeli authorities, more than 1,400 people were killed in the attack, most of them civilians.
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas, and has responded with sustained bombardment and a ground invasion that the Hamas health ministry in Gaza says has killed more than 10,500 people, most of them civilians as well.
In Burri, 30 others are missing or believed to be among about 240 hostages taken by Hamas during its attack.
Hagoff said data from another bird, the Bonelli’s eagle, allowed “more bodies to be found inside Israel.”
On Monday, the Israeli police announced that they had identified the bodies of 843 civilians and 351 soldiers.
More than a month after the Hamas attack, dozens of others missing have not been found or identified.
Source: Agence France-Presse
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