Israeli Police on Tuesday released a recording of the emergency call made by Gil-Ad Shaer shortly after his abduction in the West Bank on June 12, whose bodies were found Monday near Hebron.
At 10:25pm on Thursday, June 12, Gil-Ad Shaer make a chilling call to the police’s 100 call center, saying “I’ve been kidnapped.” Then, yelling and gunfire, and a sigh of pain in the background.
Even though policemen don’t hear a call like that every day, they didn’t realize on time what was happening on the other side of the line. The young soldier who received the call was unsure whether the call was real, and deferred the call to a veteran policewoman, who decided to disregard it as a prank. As a result, valuable time was lost and it was not until several hours later that the IDF was notified of the abduction. This gave the kidnappers time to hide the bodies of the slain teens and escape.
On Monday, the inquiry committee, appointed by Police Commissioner Yohanan Danino led by police Brigadier General Moshe Barkat, found a string of serious failures in the way the Judea and Samaria District Police handled the abduction.