Israelis from several cities have come together this week in the search for Avraham Moshe Klinerman, a sixteen-year-old boy from Modi’in Ilit who vanished in the Meron area close to forty days ago. Searches for Avraham have ranged from his home city through Bnei Brak, Jerusalem, and the Galilee and Samaria regions where he was known to frequent.
On Monday, Shmuel Klinerman, Avraham’s father, released a video statement in which he appealed to Avraham to send some sign that he was still alive, and to the public to ‘Turn the whole country upside down, but find our boy.” His mother, Gita, added ‘We have such a small country. It is inconceivable that there are still people who haven’t heard that our boy is missing.”
On Tuesday, the Israel Dog Unit (IDU), a nonprofit specializing in locating missing persons, led an effort to gather information and raise awareness among Avraham’s community at the memorial celebration of the Biblical Joshua in the PA town of Kifl Haris. In coordination with Israeli security forces, who permitted the entry of Israeli citizens into the town for one night only, the volunteers distributed more than one thousand notices to pilgrims to Joshua’s Tomb in the hopes that the crowd would recognize Avraham. Many members of Avraham’s community were present at the celebration, and a wealth of testimonies were gathered as to his testimonies and potential whereabouts.
IDU volunteer distributes flyers regarding Avraham’s disappearance at the entrance to the Tomb of Joshua.
Today (Thursday), a large group of volunteers made their way to the Meron area, where Avraham was last seen and spent hours searching the city and surrounding forests for any sign that Avraham was still in the area. Working with the IDU, searchers employed working dogs, drones, and the IDU’s proprietary incident management software to comb the forests surrounding Meron in the hopes of turning up a new lead.
IDU dog handler and search dog Teddy make their way through rugged terrain near Meron
Avraham was injured in a stone-throwing attack in Samaria and has in the past attempted to return to the scene of the attack despite it being in Area A, an area forbidden to Israeli citizens. Threatening messages sent to the IDU in Arabic from Jordanian telephone numbers have led Israeli security services to suspect a possible abduction.
IDU command center during the search for Avraham Moshe Klinerman.
IDU director Yekutiel Ben-Yaakov commented “This is very serious. More than a month has passed and it is as if the ground swallowed him up. We are not ruling out a terrorist motive. I can't say more at this time, other than to request of the public to contact us if they can recall seeing Avraham anytime over this past month, at our special missing person hotline."