Breakthrough after nearly 2 years as police arrest suspect in Haymanut Kasau case
63-year-old man arrested after allegedly attempting to kidnap a child from her Beersheba apartment; Kasau’s father says suspect lived nearby at time of his daughter’s disappearance
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A Rishon Lezion judge extended the remand of a man suspected of trying to kidnap a young Ethiopian girl in Beersheba by an additional six days on Wednesday, as police investigate the possibility that the suspect is tied to the disappearance of another Ethiopian child, Haymanut Kasau, almost two years ago.
The suspect, a man in his 60s, was detained after he allegedly attempted to kidnap a young girl in Beersheba on Monday, in an incident caught on a security camera outside the apartment of a neighbor.
The girl whom he allegedly tried to nab moved to Beersheba from Safed with her family earlier this year, raising suspicions that the suspect is linked to the disappearance of Kasau, who went missing at the age of nine from a Safed absorption center in February 2024.
Kasau’s father, Tesfai, told Haaretz on Tuesday that the suspect had also lived in Safed at the time Haymanut went missing.
The footage of Monday’s incident was obtained by Channel 12 and aired during the network’s Tuesday night primetime broadcast, although the case has since been put under a gag order.
In the footage, a man whose face is blurred can be seen approaching the apartment and knocking on the door, which is opened for him. The man says a few words, but they are not picked up clearly enough by the security camera to decipher, and he appears to reach into the apartment.
The footage then freezes, and, when it resumes, a screaming figure can be seen fleeing out of the apartment and down the hallway as the man chases after her.
נסיון חטיפה מחריד מבית בבאר שבע יוצר קשירת קשר להיעלמות היימנוט.
חוקרים חושדים שמדובר באותו חוטף או חבורה של חוטפים. pic.twitter.com/M6nsT21Ftb
— A dios Le pido ???? (@Yaronara) December 16, 2025
The girl, whose identity has been kept private, recounted the incident to Haaretz on Tuesday, shedding light on the moments between when the man knocked on the door and when she ran screaming from the house.
She told the outlet that the man had entered the apartment and sat on the couch, at which point he touched and hugged her, and grabbed her hand. Before he could continue, the girl said, she opened the door, bolted, and screamed, alerting neighbors who then called the police.
She told Haaretz that she knew the man from Safed, where her family had lived until earlier this year.
“He is a friend of my father’s, who today is in Ethiopia. He was with us, he was nice, everyone knows him. This is the first time he has tried to take me by force like that,” she said.
Most of the details of the case were placed under a gag order on Wednesday, following the arrest of the suspect, a 63-year-old man.
Nevertheless, Hebrew media outlets reported that suspicion that the man was also involved in Kasau’s disappearance came to light during the remand hearing on Wednesday at the Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s Court.
Justice Dori Saban-Noy wrote in her decision that there was reasonable suspicion against the suspect both in the case of the would-be kidnapping and in Kasau’s disappearance, the Kan public broadcaster reported.
Lawyers in the Public Defender’s Office representing the suspect told Kan that their client has no criminal record and described him as a “law-abiding citizen,” but declined to elaborate in light of the gag order.
According to Channel 12, the suspect has denied that he lived in Safed at the time of Haymanut’s disappearance, and denied all allegations against him.
Kasau was last seen in security camera footage at 7:45 p.m. on February 25, 2024, handing out municipal election leaflets outside the Jewish Agency absorption center, where she had lived since immigrating with her family from Ethiopia three years earlier.
According to a description, Haymanut stands at 1.20 meters (3’11”) and is slim with dark hair and dark eyes. She was wearing pink pants, a black skirt and a white shirt at the time of her disappearance.
On Tuesday, the Israel Police announced that it was transferring her case to the Lahav 433 Major Crimes Unit, in a move apparently unrelated to the developments in the case.
Little to no progress had been made in Haymanut’s case over the past 21 months; neither security camera footage nor testimonies of residents led to any developments, and the dozens of leads pursued by the police hit dead ends.
Her family has pushed repeatedly for her to be classified as kidnapped rather than missing, saying that the police have not done enough to locate her, but the police have insisted that they had done all they could, and that reclassifying her case as a kidnapping would not open up additional avenues.
The Times of Israel Community.