Golan Heights
Golan HeightsFlash 90

America has Amelia Earnhart. Israel, unfortunately, has Guy Hever.

The IDF soldier vanished from his Golan Heights base on August 17, 1997 and has not been seen since. His disappearance is considered unprecedented in the IDF's history. No other soldier has vanished during a period of such relative calm. Many minds have dedicated themselves to solving the mystery, with theories ranging from him having run away to the soldier being abducted by the Syrians.

Hever, from Nahariya, was last seen on his base in IDF fatigues and carrying his Galil rifle. He had been confined to his base against his will, and friends in his artillery unit say that he seemed troubled. Since then, there has been no trace of Hever.

One theory says that he went to spend some time alone, and became trapped in one of many caves that exist in the Golan Heights. They point to his friends' testimony that he seemed troubled, and wonder why the IDF has never found anything that would point to his fate.

Hever's mother has been waging a long campaign trying to convince the public that Hever was kidnapped by the Syrians. Israel only recognized him as an MIA 3 years later, in 2000. "The fact that he was never found means that he's not here. He's in Syria" she told Channel 2.

"Guy is alive, in Syria, and will return one day. I live for that moment, and I am angry over my inability to shout more than I have about this, burn tires, set the streets on fire, and chain myself to a post outside the Knesset."

A German woman, Miriam Koinike, told Israeli police in 2010 that she met with Hever in a Syrian prison when she was confined there for 12 days in 2005. Her story has been backed up by former German Intelligence Chief Ernst Uhrlau and Dr Mordechai Kedar, an Arutz Sheva colunist and Middle East expert, who then headed the Syrian desk in IDF Military Intelligence.

Koinike, a researcher of Judaism by profession, had visited several Muslim countries in recent years, among them Iran and Syria. Seven years ago, during a visit to the Syrian city of Aleppo, she was arrested by Syrian intelligence and taken for questioning in Damascus. Koinike claimed that the translator during the interrogation was none other than Hever.

She was later released and returned to Germany, where she was questioned by German intelligence. Channel 2 showed footage of a meeting a few months ago between Koinike and Hever’s mother, Rina, in which Koinike is seen saying, “His face was very narrow. The color of his skin was brown. He was shy.”

She insisted that the man before her was indeed the missing soldier, in part because he spoke Hebrew.

“He did not speak one word in Arabic,” Koinike said. “There were three people in the room: one writing the protocol, one who translated and one asking the questions.”