Summary of the testimony:

I saw the incident with my own eyes. I was at the place where he was kidnapped, from evening until morning. It was around December. That year, at that time, it rained heavily in Rosh Ha'ayin, there was even snow.

My mother, blessed be her memory, had plenty of milk, so she didn't even need extra baby food. He was in the tent with my mother all day, and at night they supposedly wanted to keep him from the cold, so they took him to this nursery (a makeshift nursery, in a military building). A healthy child. He had no fever, no diarrhea, no vomiting. Completely healthy.

In the morning, as usual, my mother went with my father to breastfeed him. Then they discovered that the doors were closed on all sides, and the building was surrounded by a barbed wire fence, of course. Mom and Dad circled the building. They didn't know Hebrew. My dad was a Torah scholar, he knew the language of the Torah, but he didn't know how to speak modern Hebrew. And my mom just called out "Hello, hello, milk, milk, Uri," and pointed to her breasts. The nurse waved a wrapped white sheet. “Uri is dead”, that's what she said. My mom and dad are outside, and she waves a package and says "Uri is dead" and supposedly puts him back in bed.

My parents, poor things, didn't know what to do. They sat on the floor, which was like an asphalt ramp. They cried bitterly and finally went home the way they came. There was no corpse. Was the child sold, was the child adopted? They didn't even let us see the adoption file. He has a birth certificate, he has an ID number. Everything is there. And there's no Uri.

My mother, after they told her that Uri had died, was afraid for my brother Zechariah, who was also in the nursery, so she secretly went at night, she knew exactly where he was, took him and ran away. The building was surrounded by a barbed wire fence, so her shoe was caught with the sock. My mother left the socks and shoes, and ran away with my brother Zechariah, barefoot. But in the end she lost him because of the radiation, in the Ringworm Affair.

My brother Zechariah and I received radiation. I remember that too. I even remember the nurses who came to accompany us to “Tel Hashomer” (hospital). I was about seven years old. My brother [Zechariah] was six years old, a year younger than me. He died of the radiation. He had a tumor in his head. Later, we found out, that my brother Moshe also received radiation, separately. He also died prematurely, from a cancerous tumor.

May the Holy God make this affair come to light, even if we don't whether we will be granted to see it in our lifetime, or others will see it in the future.

Until the day my mother died, she never stopped talking about this child, and never stopped crying over him.

We will never get him back, but at least he should know that he had a family, that he had relatives, that we had not abandoned him.

Full testimony:

Ziona Halevi:

The family immigrated in 1949. I was three and a half or four years old. The order of siblings: David (half-brother on my father's side, whom my mother, Gazal, raised as one of her own), Meir/Amir (changed his name), Ziona, Zechariah, Uri - who was taken, Moshe - my brother, may he rest in peace, and Yocheved, my sister - may she be healthy. My mother also had several miscarriages along the way.

We immigrated in October-November. She was pregnant. She had an immigrant certificate, which is not within a hand reach now, but the dates are almost certain. They kidnapped him in the height of winter, I reckon in December. That's why they said they took him - to protect him. My mother thought they would take him and return him, she didn't know they would take him permanently.

1. Uri's kidnapping

A case I saw with my own eyes. I was in the place where he was kidnapped, from evening until morning. The midwife gave Uri the name, when did you hear of Yemenites giving such a name?

My mother immigrated from Yemen in 1949, with a big pregnancy belly, and she was about to give birth. She gave birth in a hospital in Jaffa, they hadn't even circumcised him yet.

In the winter of that year, it rained heavily in Rosh Ha'ayin, it even snowed. Rosh Ha'ayin was all a British military camp. All the buildings were British buildings. Big hangars with arched roofs.

I remember the building exactly. Today it serves as “The Yemenite Heritage Center”. Of course, they've renovated it since then. And the doors of the buildings, these hangars, were on the east and west sides, wide enough for trucks to enter, because it was a military camp. Of course, military vehicles would enter this building. We had tents around the building, it was part of a makeshift nursery, where they took Uri.

My mother, bless her memory, my poor dear, had plenty of milk. So he didn't even need extra baby food. He was in the tent with my mother all day, and at night, supposedly to protect him from the cold, they took him to this nursery.

If you come to Rosh Ha'ayin, I can show you, describe to you the building, from which window - I feel like crying now - from which window they took him. A healthy child. No fever, no diarrhea, no vomiting. Completely healthy.

In the morning, as usual, my mother went with my father to breastfeed him. They discovered that the doors were closed on all sides, and the building was surrounded by a barbed wire fence.

My mother couldn't get in through the door, because it was closed, so she circled the building, because she knew exactly where he was, Uri, in which room he was. They were large rooms. Later, I studied in those classes, in the same building. I studied at the elementary school there, it was called “Ohel Sarah”, a state religious school. I was a child, playing, I didn't think about these memories at the time.

My father and mother circled the building. They didn't know Hebrew. My father was a learned scholar, he knew the language of the Torah, the language of the Bible, but of course he could not speak in that language. And my mother just called out "Hello, hello, milk, milk, Uri," and pointed to her breasts. I can see the picture in my eyes right now.

Uri's bed was by the front door. Back then, there were white iron beds. They kept children in beds like that, with bars, made of iron. The nurse picked up a kind of pillow, which was tied, wrapped in flannels. There were no diapers, there were flannel diapers, so they wrapped it in this style like they do.

A white sheet wrapped.

“Uri is dead”.

That's what she said.

My mother is outside, my mother and my father. She's next to her. She waves a wrapped package and says "Uri is dead," and puts it back in bed.

My poor parents, they didn't know what to do. They sat on the floor, there was such a ramp, so the cars could go up, from asphalt. They cried bitterly, for a while, half an hour, or an hour. They went home the way they came.

But now I'm asking myself the simplest question in the world. Is Uri dead? So bring her the body. If they had brought her the body, she would have been calm, instead of, her whole life and until her last day, saying over and over again "Uri was taken from me, they said he was dead. How could they do such a thing, why, why, why”. She gave birth to him. She wants to see with her own eyes, that he is indeed dead.

But he wasn't dead. He couldn't die without an illness. Imagine how many years have passed and I, my tears are flowing as if it were today.

There was no body. The child was sold, the child was adopted? They don't even let us see the adoption file. He has a birth certificate, he has an ID number. He has everything. And there is no Uri.

My mother, after they told her that Uri was dead, was afraid for my brother Zechariah, So she secretly went at night, she knew exactly where he was, took him and ran away. I told you that the building was surrounded by a barbed wire fence, so her shoe was caught with the sock, my mother left the socks and shoes and ran away with my brother Zechariah. But in the end, she lost Zechariah to radiation, in the Ringworm Affair.

I went with them, because I was the only daughter among the boys.

The Holy One, blessed be He, will make this affair come to light, even if we don't know whether we will be granted to see it in our lifetime, or others will be granted in the future. We will no longer receive him back, but let him know that he has a family, that he has relatives, that we had not abandoned him.

2. After the kidnapping

This is it. This is the sad story.

It goes with me everywhere, my mental anguish. Mama never forgot him, never ever, until her final day.

After that, she didn't give birth in the hospital anymore, under any circumstances. She had several more pregnancies after Uri. She gave birth to them with my grandmother, who was a midwife, a healer in all fields.

My grandmother knew how to a medicine from any herb. She would make a powder from pomegranates, dry and grind the pomegranates’ crowns, and she would get a powder. She would use it to stop bleeding, for circumcision, for wounds. She would pick a small fava bean and make powders, there were plants that she would make medicine from.

My sister [Yocheved], my mother gave birth to her at home. We had one room, the whole family was in one room. I remember there was a mattress on the floor and she gave birth to my sister. My sister, may she be healthy, was born and didn't cry. My mother said, Oh no, I fear the sorrow. My grandmother said don't worry, took her, turned her over, and the girl cried. Thank God she is alive to this day, healthy and strong.

Grandma delivered all the children after that, Thank God. Everyone called her “Ora the Wise”. Nadra in Yemenite- Arabic, and Ora in Hebrew.

---

Around the holidays, soldiers would come to give a meal, or a holiday gift to soldiers at home on leave.

The boxes would say "Madmoni." My mother said, we don't have a soldier. I didn't see those people, nor did I associate Uri with it. Zechariah was still a child.

The story came up when the late Uzi Meshulam, brought up this topic.

My mother was just talking, “They took Uri from me, they said he was dead.”

After Uzi Meshulam brought up the topic of the kidnapped babies - the whole story came up. The whole topic came up in my head. There are things, that the mind only perceives suddenly at the time, because this experience is engraved in me.

What they did to us is a Holocaust. Was it not a Holocaust?

3. The ringworm radiation (Ziona, Zechariah and Moshe)

They not only made us suffer these hardships, they did the same with the radiation. Zechariah, my brother, and I also received radiation. I remember that too. I even remember the nurses, who came to accompany us to Tel Hashomer Hospital. They took us without our parents' permission.

There was a nurse, her name was Batya, she was from Kibbutz Givat Hashlosha. And there was another nurse, her name was Sarah, she worked at the Agudat Israel school. Batya [worked] at a religious state school, where I studied, Ohel Sarah. They would come from Beit Ha'am to the school, to check for lice. And of course there were lice. The conditions were very difficult financially. Even if my mother would clean our hair, we would go to class, sit together, of course we would get infected immediately. In Ramat Hasharon and Kfar Shmaryahu, there are lice too.

Now what happened is, when there are lice, the head itches, right? And if there are nails, they injure the scalp? What they decided was, that if they saw a little peeling on the scalp, it must be ringworm.

They took us in a van like goats, not just me, there were several other children. The parents didn't know anything.

They took us to a school there in the Agudat Israel school, where the nurse Sarah was, where they would apply it to our hair - they cut it, of course - and apply it with a hairspray. It's a cream that men used for shaving, from years gone by. They would make us bald, not to mention the shame that a child would suffer, being called "Bald, bald, kiss my…" [rhymes with "ass" in Hebrew] you know what. Yes. Well, it doesn't matter.

They came innocent. Jews. Not enemies, Jews.

They believed everything they said. (They thought) “They would never harass, wouldn't do bad things”.

They had complete faith. They didn't even hesitate for a moment [to think] that they were doing us any harm.

In short, they would load us like potatoes (maybe they thought we were onions or potatoes), to the Tel Hashomer hospital, I remember it to this day. They would give us radiation. The hangars, there too. There was a clock, that would ring the time that the person had to be there. There was a kind of bed, like they do CT and MRI now, that you go in. You put something on your chest, just like at the dentist's, for protection only. And the nurse who put it on us would go out, and the clock would ring, when the amount of radiation they gave us was over. Sometimes, the nurse would come in on time and sometimes not. We would stay longer - to be roasted.

After the radiation, there was a small structure, 3 by 3 meters or 2.5 by 2.5, and there was a plate there, marble, and there were tins, where they make pickles in, round ones. She would make wax there, heat wax in them, and after the radiation, they would pour hot wax on us. Woe to them from the Day of Judgment. Woe to them, woe to them, woe to them. And then when it hardens, they tear it off. And we scream. There is no father, no mother near us, there is no one. What would they give us in the end? Candy.

4. The death of Zechariah, the death of Moshe

I was about seven years old. And my brother [Zechariah] was six years old, a year younger than me. He is gone because of that. He had a tumor in his head. And we didn't know about any of this at all. When did we find out that it was from the radiation? From the reactor in Chernobyl, the reactor gave everyone a lot of cancers, and even many children came here to be hospitalized.

In 1993-1994 we found out that it was indeed from the radiation [Note: Around the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, with the Russian immigration, victims of the Chernobyl disaster arrived in Israel, who suffered from the consequences of radiation and sometimes from a lack of adequate care in the health system. In 1993, documentation of the cases began in the epidemiological department, at Carmel Hospital].

We would have sued, but we thought it was completely natural, maybe he got hit in the head, maybe that. They haven't told me yet, they only told him. And I was a girl, the older girl always took care of the younger siblings at home, because my parents had to provide for us. And then my brother, he was also in the radiation with me, and he is a year younger than me, and his body was probably weaker than mine. And then he got the cancerous tumor. He was a diligent student, a beautiful boy, he was the first in our class to receive a scholarship, it was like an SAT exam. They didn't do SAT’s, they did scholarships, you know, scholarships like that. He was so smart, so beautiful.

And then, how did it turn out that he had a tumor?

My mother sent him to my grandmother, because we weren't far away, and he would walk and sway from side to side, and my mother would see him and say, “I'll show you how you walk on the road like a weirdo, why are you walking on the road like that, not being careful?”

He said “Mom, my vision is blurry”.

Well, she took him to an ophthalmologist. It was on Rothschild Street in Petah Tikva at the time, Dr. Kenner was his name.

Mother took Zechariah to Dr. Kenner, who said, "He has a tumor in his head." Mother came to Zechariah and said, "If they don't take out what's in your head, you'll be blind." So he replied, "If I'm blind, blind is as good as dead."

He was smart. Today I regret that she agreed to operate on him. It would have been better for us if he were blind, it's better if he hadn't died. In short, they operated on him, and medicine was in its infancy at Beilinson Hospital. They cut his head off like a watermelon. His entire back, the back of his neck, didn't grow hair. Smooth. And that was already his hallmark among children. Only hair in front.

He suffered for seven years.

After the operation, they continued to give him radiation therapy, against the cancerous tumors in his head. At first in Beilinson, then they transferred him to Assuta. When he came back from the radiation, he would vomit. And I am a child, reading Psalms and crying and wiping away the vomit. Reading Psalms and crying, that he will live.

For three years he went from radiation therapy to radiation therapy. In the end they took him to Assuta Hospital, it was still in Tel Aviv. A tourist from abroad was lying next to him. He was so enthusiastic about him, that he bought him the book The Little Prince. In short, he survived, not in a good condition.

Until then, we didn't know it was from the radiation.

On Independence Day, he was so optimistic, he loved life so much. My mother went on Independence Day, it was the 5th of the month of Iyar.

He brought the group with him. He told my mother, I think I threw up because of what you prepared - but it turned out that it was already the vomit of the soul. After an hour, he was already dead in her arms. 15 years old. That's it.

And since he went - we didn't see a Shabbat holiday, we didn't see a holiday day, since he went every Shabbat was not Shabbat, my mother was miserable, they took her Uri away and then Zechariah died. And my grandmother also blamed my mother, “Why did you open his head, why did you kill the child”.

Don't ask, what I went through in this world. Hell on earth, real hell. That's it, he's gone.

My mother passed away in 1990.

My mother, when my brother Zechariah passed away, couldn't stand it. She thought that because [the parents] would sometimes argue and fight, that my brother Zechariah passed away and was sick because of it. She didn't know yet that it was from the radiation. So she didn't want to be in touch with my father anymore, so they broke up. Imagine what I went through, divorce, death, kidnapping, everything, and I thank Him, that I'm clear-headed and I thank Him, that He also gives me a sense of humor from time to time, and I thank Him, even when I cry, it's good too, it does me good when I cry, it gives me a moment. If you put everything in and take nothing out, it's impossible, the heart is too heavy.

Later we found out that my brother Moshe also received radiation, separately. He also died prematurely, from a cancerous tumor, leaving behind a young family.

5. Ziona deals with cancerous tumors, neglect, and medical negligence.

Then I was also diagnosed with a tumor. In 1993, I had my first surgery, a surgery to remove a thyroid tumor. In 1995, I had a CT scan, and was diagnosed with a tumor in my head. I didn't feel it, I worked as usual. I am a hardworking woman, who doesn't like to be idle. I like to work, I like to clean, I like to help. Thank God, I have all these qualities that I took from my mother and grandmother, bless God. I didn't pay attention. I went to a doctor in Tel Aviv, who told me to have a head surgery, but nothing hurt so I continued to work. I worked as a special education assistant, in the municipality, where everything went well, then they sent me to have a CT scan, and they discovered that I had a tumor in my head.

Later, I started to feel [the effects], and my doctor said that the surgery couldn't be postponed any longer.

Luckily, I ended up with a good surgeon, and the surgery was successful. Slowly, thank God, I'm functioning, although not at my best, because I still have a dysfunctional thyroid gland. We've already removed my uterus, and ovaries and all. Half of my body is already free, I already gave back parts of me. Every six months I had an MRI, then every year, thank God. Recently they discovered, that out of the two lobes in my neck, in one lobe, where I removed the gland, I have half left. May no one be like that, with God's help. This tumor seems to grow from time to time. Recently they said there are polyps. Okay, I need to get it out.

I went to Tel Hashomer Hospital. They gave me local anesthesia in my neck, and took a biopsy. It takes time, and then i went to the doctor to get the answer. There was a very nice Arab doctor there. She told me, they did the puncture in the wrong place. There you are, another extra cost.

They took me again to have a puncture. I said, I'm not going to Tel Hashomer, I want Meir Hospital. I had a very good family doctor, who gave me whatever I asked for. She also loved me very much, she would always tell me, Ziona, you were born in the wrong place. Okay, what can I do, this is the existing situation.

I went to Kfar Saba, and there too, she sent me to the emergency room, they sent me to an ENT doctor. My daughter came with me. I was ahead in line, I thought i would save her time, she should come and see the doctor with me. He says, you don't need an ENT, who sent you? They already did blood tests, blood pressure, infusion, everything. I ran into a very nice person there in Kfar Saba, at Meir, and she was angry with them in the emergency room. You know, appointments are rarely granted. So because they did this to me, she was considerate. It was a Thursday that I went to the hospital, she said: “okay come on Sunday”.

They did an ultrasound and that was it. I got home and still, thank God, I don't know. That was a few months ago.

And who told me that they didn't do it in the right place? An Arab doctor. She told me the place in the response. On the response card. They told me the left side instead of the right. Am I now going to sue the doctors for negligence, contempt? I don't know what to tell you. I'm fed up with this life, I just feel like a shadow.

Many people have asked me how I'm coping, I told them that I'm doing my own psychology, constantly analyzing my situation, and asking what the order of priorities is, whether it's worth this way or that way, until I find the answer that's more worthwhile.

6. Search attempts for Uri, testimonies and activism

I was in contact with Nurit Koren [Note: Ziona spoke in the Knesset session, with the participation of M.K. Koren and families of the kidnapped children, on September 14, 2017], I was at the demonstrations of the Amram association, I have photos.

I went to the state archives in Jerusalem with my brother Moshe, we have an ID number. I asked for an adoption file, an adoption certificate. There were security personnel in the archives, thugs. They did not give me permission to speak. They gave us documents, but there are forgeries everywhere, incorrect dates - how is it July when we arrived in November? Everything is a lie. They do not give us an adoption file. Why? I do not know.

We suffered injustices that cannot be atoned for. There were healthy children, Uri was completely healthy, no fever, no diarrhea, a healthy child, breastfed to the fullest. How did he die, from night until morning? And if he died, supposedly, the parents are waiting for the child by the window, why don't they give us the body? There was simply no body, That's all. To say he's dead and he's not dead? How is such a thing possible? It's a crime that has no atonement, to tell mom "dead" and he's not dead.

Everything they did was a lie and a fabrication, it's a falsehood. Everyone was complicit in it, there wasn't a single righteous person in Sodom. Doctors, those in government, firemen, Magen David. There were forgeries in the committees, lies.

Do you think they'll tell the truth?

They lied to people who loved the homeland, loved the Jews, and believed in the Torah, and believed in the people of Israel, that they were guarantors for each other. They did unbelievable things to us, committed a crime, Jews to Jews.

Who does such things? Where was their heart?

The truth will come out.

My mother used to say, throw the mud at the wall. If it doesn't stick, it will make a sign.

Yocheved Madmoni:

According to testimony from my late mother, they took two children from her. Uri, who was still breastfeeding, and the older brother, Zechariah. When my mother came to breastfeed him on the second evening, she was told that Uri, my brother, had passed away, and they showed her a package of folded sheets, and they left. She never saw his face or body. So later that night, she arrived at this hospital, or whatever it was called, and she took back the other brother, the late Zechariah, because she knew something was going on.

After that, she refused to give birth to my brother and me in the hospital, and gave birth to us at home in Rosh Ha'ayin.

My parents immigrated from Yemen in 1949 and were housed in the Rosh Ha'ayin transit camp, with three children: Amir, Ziona and Zechariah. Mother was pregnant and the son, Uri, was born in Israel in 1950, in the immigrant camp in Rosh Ha'ayin.

I was born in September 1953, after Uri was kidnapped. I have no memories of the kidnapping. I know what they told me, what my mother told me.

My mother said she had two children in this nursery, or whatever they called it. One was a week old, two weeks old, a month old - breastfed. And one was a little older. She came to breastfeed.

She breastfed in the morning and came to breastfeed again, and then they told her. They took something wrapped up, no face, no head, nothing - and told her, the child is dead. And that was it, she didn't see anything.

She realized that something was happening and something was wrong. So in the evening she came and took the second child. She stole her child, as it were, took him from the hospital, didn't agree to let the second child stay, because she was afraid they would tell her exactly like what happened with the first child. And that's why she gave birth to me and my brother at home, because she didn't agree to go to the hospital, because of what happened with Uri, may his memory be blessed. Actually, I don't know if his memory should be blessed, he may still be alive, somewhere we don't know.

I just know that until the day my mother died, she didn't stop talking about this child and didn't stop crying over him. Until the day she died. How they took her child, how they took her child. That's it. That's what I know.

My brother Amir was the older one, he was organized, and kept everything, he was a teacher by profession, so he knew exactly everything, one by one. I was still little. My brother Amir and my brother Moshe, both of hem are now deceased.

This is a joke, first of all, and I'll tell you what I think. I think, that they shelve a case like this until everyone dies, and all the parents and the children, so that there will be no documentation and nothing like that. Now, I blame all the big ones for it, including Ben-Gurion, including Peres, including Burg, and including those, who were at the head of the state. That's why they don't want to bring it out, that's all. They don't want to bring it out. It can't be that this case was shelved, until there are no doctors, no nurses, no parents, no siblings. Nothing. So many times, we tried to open the files. The compensation to the parents is a shame and a disgrace. I also accuse them of excessive racism, that's it, there's nothing to do. We are at a loss, there's nothing to do. Do you understand? They believe that the Yemenite children are nothing, they're toys, they're nothing. [...]

From the parents' perspective, it's exactly the same as having their children murdered. That's what I think. And it amazes me. These are the very same people who suffered, and were tortured, really, God forbid what they went through there (in the Holocaust), it's they, who should be so cruel to another population? They? It's exactly the same, that's what happened. That's it. Where there's power, that's how it is. It's the same all over the world.

Even today, nothing has changed, even today racism is still there, and the elites do what they want and step on whoever they want, everything is fine. They have everything, they have the power, they are allowed everything, for others everything is forbidden. That's all.

When we received the money, or what's called a mockery, then I did write down his ID. 15,000 shekels, really, tell me, it's a shame and a disgrace. But I said, to leave that too. I'm seventy, almost seventy-one, to leave that to the state too, that's also too much.

They're waiting for us to die, do you understand?

That no one will be able to check it and no one will be able to call them out. Criminals under the law.

Amir Madmoni (Simchoni)

Cohen-Kedmi Committee minutes:

In a letter to the committee, January 25, 1996, Amir relates that when he was 7-8 years old, his mother returned from the Rosh Ha'ayin nursery without his brother Uri, who was one or two months old. Uri was healthy. The day before, his mother had breastfed him, and said that he had gone to bed full and rested and at a good weight.

The next day she went to breastfeed him and was told that he had died.

She did not believe this until the day she died.

Cohen-Kedmi committee minutes:

Testimony given by the brother, Amir Madmoni (Simchoni)

February 22, 1996.

In the committee, Amir testifies that both parents, three brothers including himself (Amir), Zechariah and another sister, immigrated to Israel from Yemen. The mother was pregnant with Uri at the time of the immigration.

After giving birth, Gazal took the child home. He was completely healthy. Afterwards, they demanded that she bring him to the nursery for tests, and come there to breastfeed him. She would take him home and bring him for tests, from time to time. Then (around two weeks old) they asked her to leave him at the hospital for tests, to come and breastfeed him there. From there, he never returned.

Mother would go to breastfeed him, from the tent in the Rosh Ha'ayin transit camp to the children's home/ Hadassah Hospital in Rosh Ha'ayin.

On the day he disappeared, she went to breastfeed him twice, in the morning and in the afternoon. In the afternoon it was rainy, snowy?, it was difficult to get there and she stayed home. The next morning, she arrived and they said the child is gone, and they didn't show her any document or body, they kicked her out of the hospital.

About 15 years ago, the army came with a package for the soldier Madmoni, I don't remember if he was in the reserves or not (around 1981?). Mother said she didn't have a child in the army, so we didn't receive the package.

From the minutes:

I remember the incident. My mother went to breastfeed my brother in the morning, and came back and the child was completely healthy, he had nothing, nothing at all. And she came back happy and lighthearted.

That day it was raining, it was raining in Rosh Ha'ayin, and it was very difficult to get there, because there was snow and all sorts of things, it was cold, so for lunch, she went to breastfeed him again, she went to breastfeed him and came back, and the child was perfectly fine.

She was supposed to go back around five o'clock, something like that, she didn't go, because it was cold, or I don't know what, my father, he needed her, anyway she didn't go, and we were three little children at home, so she stayed home and didn't go.

The next morning she goes, and they tell her, listen, your son is gone. What, where is he gone? They told her he died. What do you mean he died? But yesterday, when I breastfed him, the child was healthy, what do you mean he died?" “No, he died." “Where did he die? Where is he, show him to me”.

"Mrs., the child is dead, go home."

My mother saw that it was like that, turned around and went home. She didn't believe it until the day she died.

My mother went to the hospital, the children's home, several times afterwards. Where the babies were, was the Hadassah Hospital, they called it Hadassah. She would breastfeed him there, in the Hadassah nursery. And there was a fence on it, there was a barbed wire fence around the hospital. […] My mother would go to the nursery, like a baby care center, so to speak, to be watched over, for him to be checked, to make sure everything was okay. In the first few days, my mother would breastfeed him and take him back. Then, from two weeks old onwards, he would stay in the nursery, she would go and breastfeed him there.

We had one incident, I remember it, it was about fifteen years ago, I don't remember exactly, they came to us from the army, and they said we deserve a package for the soldier, I don't know if in the reserves or not, Madmoni. No first name, no nothing, Madmoni, the son of Gazal and Salem Madmoni, so my mother says “I don't have a child like that in the army. I don't have a child like that in the army”, so we didn't get the package.

When she gave birth, he was brought home. Everything was perfectly fine, everything was fine. Only later did they ask her to bring the child for tests. They took the child for tests and he never came back.

We did not complain [to previous committees]… because the previous committees did not seem legitimate to us. We believe in the validity of this committee, we believe in its willingness to bring the truth to light, and therefore, we also saw a need to come and testify. We did not turn to any public committee, we heard that a state investigation committee had been established, we said this is the address and this is the place, otherwise we would have suppressed our grief in our hearts.

My mother kept telling me: ”Son, my whole life will not be a life, I will not be calm in my life, until I see my son back”.

Notes:

Bracha Seri, Amir's wife, was supposed to come and testify that day, together with Amir.

According to the letter she wrote to the committee, she was almost kidnapped, and her mother managed to get her back, with difficulty. In the end, they did not show up, because the mother refused.

The minutes show an impatient and disdainful attitude towards Amir. A committee member harasses him, asks questions and interrupts in the middle of an answer, threatening to remove him from the discussion in the middle of answering a question he was asked by committee members.

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Discrepancies in the committee documents:

1. The immigration certificate lists 4 children instead of 3 in the family’s testimony:

November 3, 1949 Immigration certificate - Rosh Ha'ayin B. Salem and Gazal immigrated with 4 children.

2. Inconsistency between birth dates:

Birth diary of Rosh Ha'ayin B Camp – July 10, 1950 / Hadassah Hospital Rosh Ha'ayin - born on July 1, 1950 (mother said he was born in Jaffa, in an Arab hospital).

3. Inconsistency between death dates:

• There are 5 different documents in the Rosh Ha'ayin Camp records. In 2 of them the date of death is August 15, 1950, in one of them August 14, 1950, in another one, there is no exact date, and in the last one, there is a request for burial arrangements, on August 15, 1950.

-In the records of the hospital and the Ministry of Health (2 separate documents), Uri died on August 14, 1950.

-In the records of the “Chevra Kadisha” (the funeral company) of Petah Tikva, Uri was brought for burial on August 15, 1950.

-In the committee documents - the date of death is written in handwriting August 14, 1950, and in print ("Conclusions") the date of death is August 15, 1950

4. ID number 050066711 - information not given to the family until the brothers, as adults, went to the state archives.