Officers conducting routine police activity in northern Israel stumbled upon bones in a cave in the Mount Meron area Thursday, a police spokesperson said Friday morning.

A police forensics team was dispatched to the cave to examine the remains, which were then transferred to the Abu Kabir forensics lab for a more comprehensive analysis and DNA testing.

Police say it is unclear whether the remains are from a human or an animal.

There are currently three open cases of missing persons who were last seen in or around the Mount Meron area.

Moishe Kleinerman, a 16-year-old boy from Modi'in Illit, was last seen in the Mount Meron area before he vanished on March 25th, 2022.

Thirty-seven-year-old Moshe Eliezer Ilovitch, who disappeared in May 2019, was also last seen at Mount Meron.

Last November, 60-year-old Rafael Haim Haddad, a resident of the city of Tzfat was declared missing. He was last seen some five miles east of Mount Meron.