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The IDF has resumed its search for missing soldier Guy Hever, who disappeared from the Golan Heights 17 years ago and was last seen on his assigned base. 

Channel 2 reports Monday that the search for Hever has now focused on two minefields near the Barak artillery base, near the town of Nes Golan. 

As part of the effort to trace the soldier's route, researchers started a fire in the minefields and photographed the area from the air. By comparing the photographs before and after setting fire to fields, the researchers will test whether there were secondary explosions that do not match the terrain that could explain the source of his disappearance.

Hever was last seen on August 17, 1997, at the base in the Golan Heights where he served. No information has surfaced in more than 15 years about his whereabouts. 

In the first days after his disappearance, his commanders thought that Hever had decided to commit suicide over a dispute which had broken out between him and his commanding officer and for which he was court-martialed.

However, his last whereabouts were just 1 kilometer from the Syrian border - leading to theories over the intervening years that he has been held in the embattled country ever since, or else that he strayed into the minefields.

"The IDF is constantly looking to find missing soldiers," the IDF stated Monday night. "In this context, because the Golan Heights also contains active minefields, we [are looking there] in an attempt to locate any finding that could be relevant and shed information on the disappearance of Guy Hever."