The father of a fallen Israel Defense Forces soldier said Hamas terrorists who killed him on Oct. 7 decapitated him and tried to sell his head.
"The terrorists, the barbarians, it's too little to say for them, they beheaded him and took the head to Gaza," David Tahar, whose son, Adir, was killed during the terror attacks, told an Israeli news channel. "I did everything I could. It wasn't easy. In the end, I got a body without a head. I insisted very much with the army to see the body. They tried to explain to me that I should not see it."
Against the urging of authorities, Tahar opened the casket when he was alone, seeing the "unrecognizable," headless body of his son, whom he identified through dog tags and a DNA test. He added that terrorists who killed his son launched a missile and three grenades at him and abused the corpse. Tahar also said that he saw on a CT scan that his son's body was full of shrapnel.
After he buried his son, Tahar embarked on a months-long search for the head, asking "everyone I could" for answers. In his investigation, he also found a video that showed his son's body without the head during the attacks.
Finally, he received an answer from Israeli authorities. Interrogations from Shin Bet, the Jewish state's security agency, with captured Hamas terrorists revealed the location of the head, which one terrorist had tried to sell for $10,000. The military dispatched special forces to a location in central Gaza, where they found the body part in a freezer.
"Inside a duffel bag with tennis balls: documents of some terrorist, and a soldier's head. They managed to bring what was left after two and a half months, it was probably abused there as well." Tahar said. After DNA and dental records confirmed the identity, the family buried the head.
Hamas terrorists killed an estimated 1,200 people, mostly civilians, during their Oct. 7 attacks in Israel, where they also took hundreds of hostages. As just under half of the hostages have been released, reports have emerged detailing the horrific treatment of those captives, including branding from a hot motorcycle exhaust, as well as torture and sex abuse.