The family of Yoram Hillel Fliter, a 32-year-old man from Safed who went missing in November after volunteering in Ashkelon to help soldiers on Oct. 7, is stepping up the search for him.
The family is offering a cash award to anyone who provides information leading to his return and is hiring a private investigator to take up the case, as they believe the police have not been doing enough to find him.
Fliter, originally from Elkana in Samaria, is a psychology student at Tel-Hai College and lived in Safed and Kiryat Shmona, all in the Upper Galilee. After the shock of Oct. 7, he cut off communication with his family, most of whose members live in Samaria.
He was last seen on security camera footage at a gas station in the Ashkelon area, in November. However, his car was found in March, in a field west of Jerusalem, located between Beit Shemesh and Moshav Mata. It was in a parking lot near an oil press close to the Israel National Trail, with a wallet in it.
Since his vehicle was found, police and the Israel Dog Unit have conducted searches both in and near his apartment and in the area where his car was found. Testimonies of possible sightings have been collected, but no results have come from them.
In the spring, people thought they saw Fliter in the Modi’in area, west of Jerusalem, but the police waited before initiating searches, which did not yield any clues. With many regional rescue units operating under the police having been called up for IDF reserve duty, the family believes that there has been a shortage of manpower allocated to the task.
Fliter’s brother Daniel told Israel National News this week, “There is no day and no hour that we do not think of Yoram, our brother who is beloved to us and to everyone. We do not lose hope, and with each day that begins, we pray that this will be the day when we find our Yoram. We turn to you, to anyone who can help—provide any detail, no matter how small.”
Abraham, another brother, added, “It’s unacceptable that a person disappears like this and the state doesn’t mobilize to find him. We are very concerned about his fate, and as days go by, it becomes harder to find him.”
The investigation is being conducted by the Safed police, despite his car being found about three hours’ drive away.
In a public statement in April, the police said: “Due to the nature of things and for reasons of privacy, we will not elaborate on the matter, but we note that upon locating Yoram’s car abandoned in a wooded area near Beit Shemesh, the police contacted his family and initiated an investigation, during which extensive search operations were carried out in the area where the car was found, alongside conducting an investigation that includes a variety of means. We will continue to check every piece of information using all means at our disposal in order to locate him.”
