Following Israel Police's successful investigation that located mother and daughter Meli and Liel Yahalomi safe and sound, the campaign headquarters working to bring home Hymanut Kassau is expressing justified anger over what they describe as unequal treatment in police handling of the cases, demanding that the investigation into the girl's abduction be immediately transferred to the Shin Bet security service.
"As Shabbat ended, we received the joyful news that Mali and Liel Yehalomi were found healthy and safe. Once again, a happy ending, just not our happy ending," Haimanot's parents, Benchi and Tesfia Kassau, said this evening. "Our Haimanot has been gone from us for 902 days now. 902 days have passed since our little girl was abducted. She was 9 years old, she didn't choose to disappear and didn't choose not to come home, yet everything possible has not been done to find her."
The parents directed sharp criticism at Police Commissioner Superintendent-General Danny Levy and the police command over what they perceive as blatant discrimination in the allocation of investigative resources: "Israel Police, under the commissioner's direction, deployed all its capabilities to find Mali and Liel, but what have they done for our Hymanutt? Investigators from Lahav 433 [Israel's national serious crimes unit] searched half the world to find them, yet they don't even meet with us or update us properly."
Given the prolonged lack of progress, the parents are renewing their request that police acknowledge their failure and transfer the case to the country's top security agency: "We are again asking that Israel Police transfer the investigation of Haimanot's abduction to the Shin Bet. Commissioner Superintendent-General Danny Levy and Lahav 433 Commander Superintendent Meni Binyamin, who have failed to find any lead in the investigation, must hand the case over to the General Security Service, because our child is still not here."
They concluded with an emotional appeal to the public: "And to the dear people of Israel, whose citizens continue to show us light in all this darkness, and we understand that many of them have expressed, like us, their anger at the discrimination in handling the investigation of Haimanot's abduction, thank you. Thank you so much, and please: be with us, help us raise our voices in outcry, because unfortunately no one is listening to us."
