JERUSALEM — There was no trace of Hanan Yablonka — not on the 42-year-old Israeli’s social media accounts nor on his phone, found in the bullet-riddled car he and four friends tried to flee in after Hamas militants attacked the music festival they were attending in southern Israel.
The friends were killed in the Oct. 7 attack. But nearly two months later, Yablonka’s family still has no news about what happened to him. He is one of dozens of people still unaccounted for after Hamas infiltrated Israel, killing some 1,200 people and taking about 240 hostages.
Some of the bodies of those who died were so badly burned in fires or explosions during the attacks that there’s little left to identify. Others who might still be alive haven’t been traced, forcing families to live in limbo.
“It’s a big nightmare,” Yablonka’s niece, Emanuel Abady, told The Associated Press. “Is he alive, is he dead, or where is the body? Maybe he’s in Gaza. … Maybe he got hurt, maybe he got shot, but he’s in Gaza.”
In the immediate aftermath of the attack, police, the military and investigators grappled with a mass casualty crime scene, trying to identify the dead and the abducted. Getting clear answers for people’s whereabouts and the number of dead was, and remains, challenging.
In November, the military adjusted the number of people killed from more than 1,400 to approximately 1,200, but didn’t specify why. It’s also…
