Israel to Check Mossad Archives for Material on Missing Children

(Bloomberg) -- Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked wants to go through censored military and Mossad spy agency documents for any new information on the nearly 1,000 children of Yemenite immigrants who mysteriously disappeared decades ago.

“The Yemenite children affair is a bleeding wound in Israel’s society,”
Shaked said in a statement from her office. ”Healing will start with exposure, not concealment.”

Israel launched a website two years ago with some 200,000 documents meant to help families look for children they were told had died in the hospital. Most of the families were new immigrants from Yemen who arrived between 1948 and 1954, in the early years of the state. Three government inquiries into the affair failed to find evidence that children were taken from their families without their consent and given up for adoption as many of their families continue to believe.

The families’ push for more information prompted Shaked to ask the state archivist to go through documents that were censored in the 1950s and may include information on actions taken by military medical personnel or agents abroad.

“I was told that there may be additional material in security service archives and I have asked to investigate this,” Shaked said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Gwen Ackerman in Jerusalem at gackerman@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Riad Hamade at rhamade@bloomberg.net, Michael S. Arnold, Amy Teibel

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