ISRAEL GAZA WAR

TEL AVIV, ISRAEL -- NOVEMBER 7, 2023: Medical professional sort out an incoming shipment of bags containing human remains collected after the Oct. 7th Hamas attack, from the Shura Base military makeshift morgue for examination at the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Tel Aviv, Israel, Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2023. The staff of the Institute of Forensic Medicine, led by Dr. Chen Kugel, have been working since Oct. 7 on the Hamas massacre of 1,200 people. He has been trying to understand not only the causes of death but the hate behind them. The remains come from towns and kibbutzim near the Gaza border including Sderot, Kfar Aza and Be'eri, and the musical festival in the Negev Desert where 260 died. They are collected by Zaka, a team of mostly Orthodox volunteers, who scour the landscape so that every possible part of a person can be buried according to Jewish custom. "Maybe," said Kugel, "Hamas wanted to make a post-traumatic stress syndrome for this country. Never have so many Israelis died in one day. They wanted to make us afraid, to feel insecure. But on the contrary. What we saw here was a country reunited. We understood who the real enemy was." (MARCUS YAM / LOS ANGELES TIMES)