Israel Matzav

Israel Radio: Judea and Samaria police wasted precious hours Thursday night

Israel Radio reports (11:40 pm) that the police received a distress call on Thursday evening from the cell phone of one of the three boys who was kidnapped. The call was cut off. That much you heard on Friday. Here's where it gets worse.

The police tried to call back and could not reach the cell phone from which the call originated. And they did nothing about it. Until about 3:00 - 4:00 am on Friday when one of the boys' fathers came to the police to file a complaint about his missing son. Then, the token dropped.

Unbelievable.

I just told my 14-year old again, no hitchhiking.

Here's more:

And while the IDF search began on Friday, damning claims of have surfaced Saturday night, with sources saying that police in Kiryat Arba knew about the kidnapping for hours before informing the IDF, Walla! News reports. 

According to the Israeli daily, the Kiryat Arba police were informed of the kidnapping shortly after the abduction Thursday evening. Police forces instantly set up a checkpoint to make sure that the boys would not leave Hevron, sources said - but did not actually inform the IDF of the kidnapping until several hours later, at nearly 4:00 am Friday. 

An investigation shows that Sha'ar and Frenkel left the Kfar Etzion yeshiva at 10:00 pm Thursday, and notified their parents around that time that they would make their way home to Talmon and Nof Ayalon respectively.

Eyewitnesses have stated that a short time later, they saw the two teens standing at the Alon Shvut intersection, trying to find a ride. The third teen, Yifrah, told friends he was waiting for a ride around the same time, at about 9:40. 

For political and financial reasons, buses in Judea and Samaria are infrequent, and hitchhiking home has become a way of life for residents across Judea and Samaria and is a widely accepted - and common - practice. Car travel is too expensive for many families, due to both a 150% sales tax on new vehicles in Israel and gas prices topping 7.66 shekel per liter ($6.50 per gallon).  

The Walla! report indicates that the first inklings of a problem had been reported to police, or IDF officials, sometime prior to the first police report filed on the abduction at 3:00 am Friday.

A command post and checkpoint was established as soon as the police report was made, the source said, but the unit failed to report the incident to the IDF until over an hour later; the Israel Security Agency (ISA, or Shin Bet) was then notified shortly thereafter. 

Moreover, according to the report, the Judea-Samaria District Police were only notified of the early-morning call from concerned parents well into Friday morning; only still later was it clarified that the complaint indicated a kidnapping in Gush Etzion.

Maybe if the Knesset could stop sucking at the teat of the public dole, cars wouldn't have 150% tax (yes, you read that correctly) and gas wouldn't be $6.50 (down from $8 due to a stronger shekel) per gallon.

How many people died because the government insisted for 20 years on taxing anti-lock brakes and air bags as luxury items? I just bought my first car with air bags three years ago. 

Living in Judea and Samaria without a car means almost never leaving. It takes hours to get anywhere. Then again, to get from Jerusalem to Petach Tikva (where Mrs. Carl works) is 45 minutes each way by car and two and a half hours each way by bus.

Labels: Israel police, kidnapping

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:20 AM