The Israel Dog Unit, a nonprofit specializing in working dogs, held an interorganizational conference in the town of Kfar Tapuach in Samaria to study a number of unsolved missing person cases from the past two years.
Aside from the Israel Dog Unit, the conference included United Hatzalah, ZAKA, the Israel Police, private investigators, and family members of the missing. The team held a brainstorming session, a general review of the files, and studied maps of the search areas to recommend plans of action.
Among the cases discussed were those of Hymanut Kassou, whose disappearance has been the catalyst for extreme criticism directed at the Israel Police.
The group also reviewed the search for Yoram Hillel Fliter, who disappeared from the vicinity of Beit Shemesh; Avraham Moshe Kleinerman, a 16-year-old boy who disappeared from Meron; and Itamar Schlesinger, who disappeared after his car overturned at the entrance to Ein Hod near Haifa.
Israel Dog Unit director Yekutiel Ben-Yaakov commented, "It is inconceivable that in a small country, thousands of people go missing every year, and that five to ten percent of the serious cases are never solved. Out of 200 serious cases, ten to twenty people are added to the list every year of those who are never found. There are cases, such as that of Schlesinger, where we were never allowed to conduct a proper search, in the outskirts of an Arab village. Shame on us if we allow these people to be forgotten, and if absentees continue to fall between the cracks, due to bureaucratic processes or intolerable indifference."