Some personal thoughts...


Fabienne Chouraqui

Senior Lecturer Mathematics

University of Haifa, 

Campus Oranim, ISRAEL

How to distinguish between the dead bodies of Hamas terrorists and Israeli men in the massacre committed by Hamas on October 7?  

 

On Saturday 7 October 2023, over a thousand Hamas terrorists from Gaza Strip infiltrated Israel at differentlocations and penetrated several settlements around. They slaughtered families in their beds, burned entire houses with civilians inside, butchered babies, raped, killed young people dancing at a music festival that was being held in the area. They also kidnapped families, old people and children to the Gaza Strip. The terrorists have filmed the barbaric atrocities they committed, and diffused them in social media. The images are despicable and prove how devoid of any shred of humanity the Hamas people are. More than 1,400 people have been murdered, more than 3,500 wounded and over 199 people are classified as missing or captive of the Hamas. It took several days for the Israeli army to get hold of the situation and to get rid of the remaining Hamas people hiding in the settlements. 

 

In the Jewish tradition, it is very important to honor the dead and to ensure a full Jewish burial. For those who meet a sudden death at a terror or an accident site, it requires the collecting of spilled blood and body parts. Zaka, a well-known volunteer-based organization in Israel specializes in disaster victim identification, search and rescue, and recovery of human remains. It is the only organization authorized by the Israel Police to handle any and every incident of sudden death, be it traffic accidents, murder, suicide, terror attacks, mass casualty incidents or natural disasters. The Zaka volunteers are professionally trained in all aspects of their work related to identification of the deceased, preserving the honor of the dead and ensuring a full and proper Jewish burial [1]. Some of the volunteers volunteered also as rescuers in the 9/11 attack in the twin towers [2].

 

After the deadly and barbaric attack on Israeli settlements, the Zaka volunteers arrived first at the area where the music festival was held in. Although, they are used to terror attacks, to bombs, to buses that were bombed, and to see dead people and human remains, they cannot find words to describe the horrors of the massacre committed by the Hamas [3]. They had, with a very heart breaking, to deal with the dead bodies of Hamas terrorists the same way like the civilians, to pack them in (different) bags and transfer them to the army [2]. So, as a first step, they had to separate the dead bodies of Hamas terrorists from those of the Israeli people. The young girls and women could immediately be declared as Israeli, as there were no women amongst the terrorists. So, the question that remained was how to distinguish between the dead bodies of Hamas terrorists who were disguised and Israeli Jewish men. Unfortunately, the answer was found very soon [4]. 

 

As we will see it soon, the Zaka volunteer’s answer encapsulates the fundamental difference between the Hamas terrorists and the Jewish people in regard to the moral values on which each one has been raised. The inhabitants of Gaza, from an early age, are raised to hate the unbelievers (kafir), the non-believers in Islam, and in particular the Jewish people and the “great Satan” (the US). From their childhood, they are exposed to the glorification of terrorists who murder Israelis, with the distribution of sweeties in the streets after each act of terrorism, and the award of an important financial compensation to the assailants and their families. So, how to expect they will not become Hamas terrorists.  The Jewish people on the other hand are raised on the sanctification of the human life and one of the words that appear the most in the Jewish book of prayers is the word “Shalom” (peace in Hebrew). 

 

Now, to come back to the question how to distinguish between the dead bodies of Hamas terrorists and those of the Israeli Jewish men, the Zaka volunteer’s answer was: the bodies of the terrorists were shot with one or two bullets to the head or the heart, while the bodies of the Jewish men were riddled with bullets [4]. 

 

[1] https://zakaworld.org

[2] https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/gaza-news/article-768660

[3] A Zaka’s volunteer testimony in Twitter (Hebrew).

[4] A Zaka’s volunteer testimony in Twitter (Hebrew).



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