The IDF is still holding two containers packed with roughly 350 bags of unidentified human remains — the shattered remnants of lives destroyed in Hamas’s savage Oct. 7 onslaught.

The remains, many burned beyond recognition, are being stored at the Shura military base, home to the IDF’s Military Rabbinate.

Each bag is believed to hold the remains of a single person. Yet, in the chaos and trauma that followed the massacre, mistakes were inevitable. Some bodies were mistakenly grouped together; some fragments may even belong to the Hamas terrorists themselves, their remains mixed with their victims’.

Military Chief Rabbi Brig. Gen. Eyal Krim has pleaded for permission to carry out further forensic testing, convinced that at least 200 of the bags could still yield identifications with more time and resources. The cost is significant, and so is the anguish — each double sample and DNA test costs thousands of shekels, and each day that passes prolongs the agony of not knowing.

But powerful voices within the government are pushing back. Yehuda Avidan, director general of the Religious Services Ministry, backed by top forensic experts, has argued for burying the remains anonymously in a mass grave, warning against bizayon hameis through repeated examinations. A final decision will soon be made by a committee drawn from Israel’s ministries of religion, health, and police, along with the Abu Kabir forensic institute.

The battle pits supporters of Chief Sephardic Rabbi Dovid Yosef — who paskened in favor of further testing — against figures aligned with his political rivals. Sources accuse Avidan of opposing reexamination not out of concern for the dead, but to avoid reopening wounds among bereaved families, many of whom still hope for answers.

Earlier forensic reviews found Israeli victims mistakenly buried among Hamas Nukhba terrorists, raising nightmarish fears that more families could someday discover their loved ones were laid to rest alongside their murderers.

The IDF rabbinate, painfully aware of these risks, has adopted strict double-verification protocols using DNA and medical records. Yet funding shortages, political infighting, and the degradation of the remains complicate every step.

“There is no greater anguish,” one source told Ynet, “than a family learning their loved one’s remains were buried alongside those who came to destroy them.”

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)