Hanegbi says hundreds of Yemenite children were kidnapped in 1950s

Minister overseeing probe into classified documents linked to controversial affair says public may never know the full truth

Yemenite immigrants in a camp near Ein Shemer in 1950. (Pinn Hans/GPO)
Yemenite immigrants in a camp near Ein Shemer in 1950. (Pinn Hans/GPO)

Minister-without-portfolio Tzachi Hanegbi of the Likud party asserted Saturday that hundreds of Yemenite children were kidnapped from Israeli hospitals in the 1950s in connection with the so-called “Yemenite children affair.”

In an interview with Channel 2, Hanegbi, who was appointed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to oversee a probe into whether the government should declassify documents linked to the affair, said that he could not determine whether the government of the day was involved in the kidnappings, or knew that they took place.

“Did the establishment have knowledge [of the kidnappings] or did they not know, did they organize it or not? We may never know,” Hanegbi said. “In the past weeks and months the Israeli public has begun to understand that this is not a hallucination.”

Families from Yemenite and North African Jewish communities maintain the government systematically kidnapped hundreds of their children from Israeli hospitals and put them up for adoption with the influx of immigration in the 1950s.

Tzachi Hanegbi (photo credit: Itzike / Wikipedia Commons)
Tzachi Hanegbi (photo credit: Itzike / Wikipedia Commons)

Over the past several decades, the government has appointed three investigative committees to probe the case, with all concluding the majority of children died in the hospital and were simply buried without the families’ being informed or involved.

A nursery at the Rosh Ha'ayin refugee camp housing Yemenite Jewish immigrants in the 1950's (Brauner Teddy/GPO)
A nursery at the Rosh Ha’ayin refugee camp housing Yemenite Jewish immigrants in the 1950s (Brauner Teddy/GPO)

The last panel to probe the affair in 2001 reached similar conclusions, but sealed various testimonies from the probe in the state archive until 2071.

Recently, several groups have urged the government to declassify the documents concerning the affair, arguing that if the several hundred children indeed died, the government should have nothing to hide.

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked last month said she would bring up the issue with Netanyahu, and a petition has been filed to the High Court.

Marissa Newman and Adiv Sterman contributed to this report.

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