When Assaf Peretz, an archaeologist and discipline photographer on the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), entered the primary home he had been assigned to look at at Kibbutz Be’eri about two weeks after the October 7, 2023, Hamas atrocities, his coronary heart sank.
“The kids’s room seemed precisely just like the room of my eldest baby,” Peretz mentioned, describing the furnishings and stuffed animals nonetheless neatly in place, regardless of the devastation. “At that time, one in all my colleagues got here to me and advised me that I wanted to make a psychological change, in any other case I’d not be capable to proceed. I did, and from that second, I labored as if I have been out for an educational excavation.”
Peretz was amongst dozens of archaeologists who, within the aftermath of the Hamas onslaught that killed some 1,200 individuals in southern Israel, combed by means of bloodbath websites to assist establish victims’ stays. Whilst these archaeologists carried out their work, authorities have been nonetheless struggling to find out who had been killed or kidnapped, and quite a few individuals remained unaccounted for.
Peretz spoke to The Instances of Israel on the sidelines of the inauguration of “Rising from the Ashes: Archaeology in a Nationwide Disaster,” an exhibition on the Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein Nationwide Campus for the Archaeology of Israel in Jerusalem.
Unfold throughout three rooms with a number of audiovisual installations, the exhibition highlights the work of specialists each within the discipline and in laboratories — work that included taking tens of millions of images and hours of footage to doc the destruction. The ultimate room focuses on IAA employees’s outreach to evacuees nationwide, providing lectures and workshops for each youngsters and adults.
“Throughout my profession as an archaeologist, I’ve excavated a whole lot of graves and photographed 1000’s,” Peretz mentioned. “In 2022, I excavated the most important cemetery from the Late Roman/Early Byzantine durations within the northern Negev [Desert]. Due to that experience, after October 7, I obtained a name asking if I’d come to the Gaza envelope.”
Peretz recalled that at the beginning he was hesitant, fearing the impression the expertise would have on his psychological well being, however then he determined to hitch.
“The following day, I used to be in Be’eri,” he mentioned. “At first, it was pure shock — the stench of burned and rotting our bodies appeared to assault me, to wrap round me. It felt like being punched within the face.”
Assaf Peretz, an archaeologist and discipline photographer on the Israel Antiquities Authority. (Rossella Tercatin/Instances of Israel)
The experience of Peretz and his colleagues proved essential.
“We’re educated to acknowledge bones, even the smallest fragments, regardless of their state of preservation, amid ashes and particles,” he mentioned. “That’s precisely what we did.”
The primary corridor of the exhibition showcases tales of the 16 people recognized by means of IAA findings.
Speaking to The Times of Israel in November 2023, IAA archaeologist Joe Uziel — who additionally volunteered in Gaza envelope communities — mentioned they’d recovered stays belonging to 60 people; on the time, solely about 10 had been recognized.
On the exhibition’s inauguration, Peretz famous that most of the stays — typically charred or tiny bone fragments — couldn’t be recognized as a result of no DNA might be extracted. Others, he added, belonged to Hamas terrorists killed within the combating.
Guests attend the inauguration of ‘Rising from the Ashes: Archaeology in a Nationwide Disaster,’ an exhibition on the Israel Antiquities Authority’s Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein Nationwide Campus in Jerusalem on August 5, 2025. (Rossella Tercatin/Instances of Israel)
In some circumstances, the archaeologists have been capable of get well private belongings of the victims.
“In a single home — burned nearly totally to the bottom — we discovered about 15 images within the protected room,” Peretz mentioned. “There have been 15 photos from a household trip. Exterior, on the garden, we found some drawings the grandchildren had made for his or her grandparents.”
“How these photos and drawings survived the hearth, I do not know,” he added. “However we returned them to the household. They advised us it was all they’d left of their dad and mom and grandparents.”
In a minimum of one case, a sufferer was recognized because of a burned object discovered on the website of the Supernova music pageant, the place Hamas terrorists killed over 360 partygoers.
A destroyed ambulance is seen on the deserted website of the Supernova music pageant, close to Kibbutz Re’im, the place Hamas terrorists murdered and kidnapped quite a few partygoers, October 12, 2023. (Chaim Goldberg/ Flash90)
Weeks after October 7, the household of 25-year-old Shani Gabay nonetheless didn’t know of her destiny. The household had final heard from Shani after terrorists wounded her as she was making an attempt to flee. Shani’s stays had not been discovered, and her dad and mom presumed she had been kidnapped.
“Shani was thought-about lacking for 47 days,” her mom, Michal Gabay, recalled on the exhibition’s inauguration. “For 47 days, we lived in uncertainty — was she kidnapped, was she killed?”
“Our biggest concern was that she would turn out to be a brand new Ron Arad,” she added, invoking the Israeli Air Drive navigator who bailed out over southern Lebanon in 1986 and whose destiny stays unknown, although he’s presumed lifeless.
IAA deputy director Moshe Ajami noticed the moon-shaped necklace Shani had been sporting that day whereas analyzing the ruins of a destroyed ambulance. Round 20 individuals had taken shelter inside earlier than Hamas terrorists fired a rocket-propelled grenade that obliterated the car, killing 18.
DNA checks on the necklace confirmed Shani’s identification, alongside that of one other younger lady whose stays had been buried weeks earlier. This led to a reexamination of the stays, and a few have been confirmed to be Shani’s.
“Only some of Shani’s stays have been discovered — two enamel, a vertebra, and one other bone,” Gabay mentioned.
“Due to Moshe, who discovered the necklace, we’re not one other Ron Arad household,” Gabay mentioned. “We have been capable of shut the circle and provides her a dignified burial in our city, surrounded by all who beloved her.”
An archaeologist with the Israel Antiquities Authority joins efforts to seek for lacking individuals in locations that was incinerated throughout Hamas’s October 7 shock onslaught. (Assaf Peretz/Israel Antiquities Authority)
Talking with The Instances of Israel, Ajami recalled his preliminary concern of assembly Shani Gabay’s household.
“At first, I used to be anxious as a result of what I discovered meant their baby was lifeless — whereas they have been possible nonetheless holding onto hope that she was alive,” he mentioned. “However once we met, they thanked me for serving to them to have closure.”
When requested how he felt working on the Supernova website — after a whole lot had searched with out success — Ajami mentioned feelings had no place.
“We labored like machines,” he mentioned.
On the occasion, each Michal Gabay and her youngest daughter, Nitzan, Shani’s sister, wore replicas of Shani’s necklace.
Michal and Nitzan Gabay, mom and sister of October 7 sufferer Shani Gabay, put on a reproduction of the necklace Shani was sporting the day she was killed, and that was discovered by an IAA archaeologist. (Rossella Tercatin/Instances of Israel)
“In the present day, all of us put on Shani’s moon-shaped necklace, which can be offered to lift funds for a charity we based in her identify,” Nitzan Gabay advised The Instances of Israel.
She defined that the charity helps causes Shani cared deeply about, together with animal welfare and environmental safety.
“Greater than something, Shani beloved life, so every single day we get up pondering of what Shani would have wished from us, and we got down to do it,” Nitzan mentioned.
Guests attend the inauguration of ‘Rising from the Ashes: Archaeology in a Nationwide Disaster,’ an exhibition on the Israel Antiquities Authority’s Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein Nationwide Campus in Jerusalem on August 5, 2025. (Rossella Tercatin/Instances of Israel)
Along with movies that includes tales and testimonies from victims’ relations and archaeologists, the exhibition additionally options the specialists’ instruments, together with sifters and dental instruments designed for looking out slim areas, reminiscent of gunshot holes and different sorts of cracks.
Documenting the destruction for posterity
Because the archaeologists completed scanning the websites for victims’ stays or possessions, the IAA started one other undertaking to protect the reminiscence of October 7 for posterity.
The specialists documented every home, neighborhood, and neighborhood by means of photos, footage, and different technological means, and created 3D fashions of the destruction websites within the IAA labs.
Guests attend the inauguration of ‘Rising from the Ashes: Archaeology in a Nationwide Disaster,’ an exhibition on the Israel Antiquities Authority’s Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein Nationwide Campus in Jerusalem on August 5, 2025. (Rossella Tercatin/Instances of Israel)
“It is very important emphasize the aim of this undertaking,” mentioned the exhibit’s undertaking director, Leora Berry, as she led a gaggle of reporters by means of a corridor the place guests can see and work together with a number of such 3D fashions, and take heed to the voices of specialists in addition to of October 7 survivors.
“We’re already seeing how the entire space is coming again to life, appropriately; it’s being rehabilitated, and the destroyed areas will quickly disappear underneath the brand new buildings,” she mentioned. “This operation is important — not just for analysis and investigation, but additionally as a vital testimony for individuals who doubt the horrors that unfolded in Israel on October 7.”
