Missing six-year-old boy found after major search
Rescue services locate Yaakov Dov Shrut outside Palestinian town of Hizme, nearly a day after he ran off
Police and rescue services said Monday morning that they found a six-year-old boy who went missing in Jerusalem the day before, after a large-scale search operation involving volunteers along with alerts on local radio stations.
Yaakov Dov Shrut was found near the Palestinian town of Hizme in the West Bank, just north of Jerusalem. He was unharmed and in good health, but “exhausted,” police said.
Sarot was last seen getting off a bus with his father on Shmuel Neiman Street, in the northern neighborhood of Neve Yaakov the day before.
The father said the boy, who is autistic, ran off.
According to reports, he was first spotted by an IDF lookout, and then collected by police.
Police officers who arrived at the scene found him “wandering, exhausted, in an open field,” according to a spokesperson. “The police and Border Police team that located the boy put him in their car, calmed and warmed him, and gave him a drink.”
Police had focused their search on the areas of Neve Yaakov and the nearby Palestinian neighborhood of Beit Hanina.
Officers were joined by rescue teams including Zaka, police tracker dog units, a helicopter, the Megilot Rescue Team and dozens of volunteers from United Hatzalah.