Police scale back search for ‘abducted’ schoolgirl

Police said they were scaling back search efforts Sunday afternoon for a schoolgirl who was allegedly kidnapped in Holon in the morning, saying they had found no evidence to support the claim.

A 12-year-old schoolgirl volunteering as a crossing guard in the city, located just south of Tel Aviv, had reported seeing an older man push a young girl into the trunk of a black car and drive away.

Police subsequently launched a massive search for the vehicle and contacted all schools in the Holon area to determine if any schoolchildren were unaccounted for. Roadblocks were set up near the area of the reported kidnapping.

But by the afternoon hours, with no schools reporting a missing child and no further indications of a kidnapping, police decided to cut back on the operation.