(Photo: Flickr: Gareth Williams/Creative Commons)
Jerusalem (REPORT) – The Israeli government has released 200,000 documents as a searchable data base for the roughly 1,000 Yemenite families who claim their children went missing after immigrating to the newly formed state of Israel decades ago.
The documents were not intended to be released until 2031, but in light of the recent UN resolution to halt Israeli settlements, the documents were likely released today for PR reasons.
Yemenite families who immigrated to Israel shortly after its formation found themselves in in-take camps with poor sanitation conditions. As a result many children became ill or were hospitalized. For about a thousand of those families, they were told their child had died. But the families say they never received any paperwork, cause of death, and were never allowed to see or bury the body. Many families believed their children had been given up for adoption to elite Ashkenazi couples.
To add further fire to the conspiracy, many families received voter registration forms or call-up notices from the Israeli Defense Forces upon their deceased child’s would-be 18th birthday. Since then, Israel has tried to chalk it up to poor bureaucracy as it was a new state at the time. But many families are not convinced.
For some families, the dates don’t quite match dates listed on the documents. Families are also suspicious why moderately ill children were suddenly pronounced dead only one day after entering the hospital and why parents were never allowed to view the bodies. As a result, some families believe the newly released documents to have forged numbers. Some members of Israel’s parliament and Israeli celebrities have family members connected to the missing children, and they want answers.
Israeli news agency, Hareetz, says these documents are no “smoking gun” as 923 burial documents are listed for 1,060. 69 children’s records remain unknown. Israel maintains that they want to put this issue to rest and claim they will be releasing a DNA data base for children and parents to search.