Maternal family of cable car crash survivor appeals decision to send boy to Italy

The maternal family of Eitan Biran, a 6-year-old boy who was the sole survivor of a cable car crash in Italy that killed his parents earlier this year, files an appeal against a Tel Aviv family court’s decision to return the boy to Italy during a bitter custody fight.

The court last week ruled that the boy will be returned to his paternal aunt in Italy while a local court weighs which relatives will get custody over him. The court said Eitan’s place of living is Italy, from where maternal grandfather Shmuel Peleg whisked him away to Israel in defiance of local court orders.

The Peleg family, which wants the boy to remain with them in Israel, argues that he “is expressing his clear wish to remain with his maternal family and his voice is not heard,” as well as charging that paternal aunt Aya Biran-Nirko, who is now in Israel, is preventing them from meeting the boy.