Family and friends in the Haifa suburb of Daliat al-Carmel marked the fourth anniversary of the disappearance of local soldier Majdi Halabi on Tuesday.
The event was sponsored by his parents, a nonprofit organization set up in his name ,and the Born Free group, which works to bring back all missing Israeli soldiers.
Halabi, a member of the Druze community in northern Israel, was last seen on May 25, 2005. He served at an ammunitions base near his home and was officially pronounced missing two weeks later, on June 6 .
IDF General (res.) Eyal Ben-Reuven, the general manager of Born Free, told Arutz Sheva on Monday that the government has put up "a lot of money" for information leading to Halabi's return. It has done the same for Ron Arad, Guy Hever, the soldiers missing from the battle of Sultan Ya'akov in Lebanon, and Gilad Shalit.
The government went so far as to establish phone numbers abroad so that people in enemy countries such as Syria and Iran could call and not have to deal with problems caused by calling a number in Israel, said Ben-Reuven.