At a destroyed and burned house in Kibbutz Beeri, teams of Israeli archaeologists are investigating the ashes and ruins. They are searching for human remains, hoping to identify victims whose fate remains unknown a month after the deadly Hamas attack.

The Beer is one of the communities hardest hit by Hamas gunmen who invaded southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing about 1,400 people and taking more than 240 hostage, according to Israeli officials.

Charred cars with sheet metal melted by the heat they are still on some paths of the kibbutz, some houses have been destroyed by the flames, others have bullet holes. Children’s bicycles lie among rubble, broken glass, and even unexploded ordnance.

In Beeri, as well as in the neighboring villages of Kfar Aza and Nir Oz, the gunmen shot families who had taken refuge in the special security rooms of their homes and set fire to their homes. They also torched vehicles at the music festival where 260 people died.

Rescue teams found charred corpses in many places, but with many people still missing, the Israeli army asked archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Agency (IAA) two weeks ago to help with the search.

So far they have helped identify 10 victims, they say, with the number of missing now estimated at 25.

“We went into burned-out houses,” said archaeologist Joe Uziel, “looking for even the tiniest clue that might help us identify people who are missing, either personal items such as jewelry or fragments of bones broken by the heat.”

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With the help of the soldiers, the experts divided the areas into blocks, as they would in an excavation, and began the search and sifting.

It wasn’t easy, Uziel said.

“It’s a mixed feeling: you want to find something and you don’t want to find something. Because if you find something, that means you’ve verified that someone died, and at the same time, not finding someone means that people continue to not know about them.”

“As hard as this is,” he added, “it gives you some relief that maybe you can give some help and answers to these families who have lost so much.”

Photos from the Israel Antiquities Authority/ISRAEL ANTIQUITIES AUTHORITY