One of the IDF’s central tasks since the beginning of Operation Swords of Iron in the Gaza Strip is the return of the hostages and the location of the missing from the Black Sabbath of October 7. To achieve this, security bodies are working in close collaboration with each other on a broad scale. Those leading the sweeps are members of the Yasar Darom unit, the Chief Rabbinate’s search unit in the southern sector, who are working together with the IDF’s Missing Persons Branch to find everyone.
In an interview with journalist Ariel Cahana for Israel Hayom, Yasar unit commander Lt.-Col. Elyasaf told of how the unit is working to help find the hostages and the missing: “The documentation of every meter of activity is done with maps and military cameras. We learned this helps. When there is fear for the missing, we work shoulder to shoulder with Missing Persons, and it’s happening in this war, as well. But alongside the precise work, we are working as quickly as possible for the family to get information from a reliable source and not from WhatsApp. This is something which we always see before us.”
“The area and the ground where we can find the fallen are enormous. Some of them were impossible to reach at the beginning of the fighting. We’re talking dozens of kilometers, including areas across the [Gaza border] fence to the outskirts of Beit Hanoun. The area is always increasing with the advance of the fighting, and until now we have been in all the settlements and all the open areas.”
The search efforts done by Yasar members during the temporary pause, helped to identify some of those who fell in the Black Sabbath of October 7 and whose bodies were taken into the Strip and located, with findings found that allowed their identification and the determination of their death with certainty by IDF Chief Rabbi Brig.-Gen. Rabbi Eyal Krim.
