Israel investigating possible arrest of man missing in Yemen
Family of 65-year-old originally from Yemen, who'd been held there on previous trip, fears he was captured by Islamic State
Israel is investigating whether an Israeli man missing in Yemen was arrested on criminal grounds, while his family feared he had been captured by the Islamic State jihadist group.
The 65-year-old Ashkelon resident, who was traveling to his homeland of Yemen to visit his brother, was last heard from in June, when he called his family from a Jordan airport to inform them that he was traveling with three Saudis who had promised to take him to his destination for free, according to Hebrew-language news site Ynet.
Israel was looking into the possibility that the man had been detained in Yemen on criminal grounds. He was held by Yemenite authorities on a previous trip in 2013 for three months on suspicion of spying for the Jewish state after he hung an Israeli flag on his family members’ house.
During the earlier incident, the man was released when rebels attempted to seize control of the city and all prisoners were freed. Upon returning to Israel, he was warned not to go back to Yemen, Ynet reported.
Houthi rebels, backed by Iran, have been leading an insurgency in Yemen since 2004.
The man’s family was trying to stay optimistic, but feared he might have been captured by the Islamic State, which has a history of kidnapping foreigners and releasing videos of their beheadings.
The 65-year-old was heading to Yemen to try to convince his brother to immigrate to Israel, and he had visited his home country four times previously on a foreign passport since he moved to Israel 20 years ago, Channel 10 reported.
The man’s brother said he never arrived, and inquiries to Yemenite authorities did not provide any additional information. The Israeli Foreign Ministry said it could not provide assistance since Israel does not have diplomatic ties with Yemen, the man’s daughter said according to the Walla news website.
The daughter had tried to warn the man against traveling with the three men via Saudi Arabia, but he did not listen. “I told him it was dangerous, but he told me not to worry and that it will be okay,” she said.
The man’s wife moved in with the daughter, who said the whole family was “depressed and sad” and did not “know how to deal with the situation.”
“We didn’t expect that this would happen, if we had known, we wouldn’t have let him leave Israel,” the daughter said.
A private investigator might be able to locate the man, the daughter had been told, but she said she did not have sufficient funds to pay for such services.
Marissa Newman contributed to this report.