Michelle Obama
Michelle ObamaReuters

Five days since the abduction of Israeli teenagers Eyal Yifrah, Naftali Frenkel and Gilad Sha'ar, as security forces continue their intensive search to find them, the outpouring of sympathy on social media hasn't subsided either.

Activists, actorsmusicians and other public figures have rushed to adopt the #BringBackOurBoys slogan to raise awareness for the kidnapped teens' plight; and now Yesh Atid MK Aliza Lavie has also gotten in on the act, taking to YouTube in an appeal to the United State's First Lady, Michelle Obama.

Addressing her "mother to mother, woman to woman", Lavie appeals to Mrs. Obama to help push for the teens' freedom.

In the video, Lavie emphasizes that children are simply not legitimate targets: "boys have to be out of the game," she said.

The MK's decision to turn to Michelle Obama appears to be another play on the social media "hashtag" currently trending on Twitter and elsewhere. 

The slogan was adopted from the #BringBackOurGirls campaign to raise awareness over the plight of hundreds of mostly Christian Nigerian girls, who were kidnapped by the Islamist Boko Haram terrorist group back in April.

The US First Lady famously joined the campaign, posting a picture of herself holding a placard with the slogan. That provoked both sympathy and some measure of derision, with some commentators asking why the Obama administration was limiting its reaction to social media and not offering more practical aid to Nigeria.

For its part, Israel offered to help the Nigerian government in the hunt for the kidnappers, with Prime Minister Netanyahu's office saying the Jewish state was "already" offering its counterterroris expertise to Abuja.