Israel Dog Unit (IDU) Diary of recent searches for missing people in Israel
Friday Dec. 23, 16, Ashqelon police called the Israel Dog Unit (IDU) to request assistance in the search for a woman who had been sexually assaulted Thursday and who had left a letter indicating that she was planning to harm herself.
Friday a few hours before shabbat and several hours after we were called, we arrived on the scene with 8 dogs and handlers, planning to spend as much time as necessary to find the missing woman. There was a phone signal from Friday morning, which encompassed a large area of fields, forest, industrial center and building site. We set up camp outside the police station building a make-shift command center. We ran the search from the cold-rainy parking lot near the police station. The dogs and handlers covered a good part of the area we needed to cover by Saturday night, however our missing person was still not found. The police were ready to fold up. As usual when they have no results they call off the search and focus on Tel Aviv. We informed the police that without a warm room that we could operate out of we would have a difficult time continuing, This happens on most searches when the lost person is not found within a matter of hours - the cops go home. I explained to the police that we had at least another 5-10 hours of search time with the dogs to complete all of the areas within the phone signal range. We did what we could with the drone and the dogs, but there was more ground to cover,
The police had no choice, they had to give us the use of their dining room where we could set up our beds and our computers from where we could continue to run the search. It was now Hanuka. The police lit their candles at the front dispatch desk. The dogs remained in cages on the trucks during their rotational breaks and the search continued.
We finished all of the areas that we needed to search without results. Sunday afternoon after to close to 48 hours, we set back for Tapuach, where we would finally light our own Hanukah lights and where we would make a surprise party for Alik, one of our noble volunteers from Bensonhurst Brooklyn.
Thank G-d our missing person turned up in a home for abused women several days later...
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The next Shabbat we would be called out again to look for a missing elderly woman from Haifa. In the end, the woman was believed to have taken a bus and we had no clue where to start the search so we stayed home. She was found Friday night confused and slightly injured in the back of a gas station 5 kilometers away from her home. It was a good thing she was found in time to be brought to the hospital without any major injury. It was good we could stay home shabbat finally.
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Friday the 6th of January 2017 LMinyanam we got yet another call - Three shabbats in a row. This time the missing person was a 51 year old religious fellow married with five kids, who works as an engineer for the national insurance agency, Israel's social security bureau. He had vanished from a hospital that borders on a forest area in Jerusalem. He was not in good mental shape at the time he was released. He had no money on him. He never returned home Thursday. He was consider to be a high-risk case. We knew he frequented the Jerusalem Forest regularly. By Friday afternoon his family and police began to worry.
I had a serious problem when I received the call for help from the missing man's sister. I was more than half way on the road to Eilat on the way to bring supplies for shabbat for our crew there who were taking a diving course. Having a crew that could dive to search for a missing person when the dog indicates in water is very useful as we learned from previous searches. We had a number of handlers and volunteers in the Jerusalem area who could be called in to search without us. But without our lead crew and the trucks, a serious command center would not be set up. I called Rav Lior our "posek" to ask what to do. Is this the type of search that mandates violating the shabbat? He told me that we should rely only on people in the area who could walk to the search and who would not have to violate the sabbath. Gideon brought Moshe and Yosef there with Teddy, an excellent search dog. They would search in the Jerusalem forest and then walk home. Moshe came back shabbat morning to search in Lifta. Our missing person was found at the kotel, thank G-d, 11 AM Friday morning.
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Saturday, Ariel, our Beersheba director found a missing 3 year old child.
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Saturday night we were called in to another search n BeerSheba which never materialized...
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Sunday we were called to provide another security dog for the community of Bat Ayin for a young family that lives on the edge of that vulnerable area. The Efrat Gush area has been the target of many recent attacks. Two weeks ago one of our dogs - Agree, dispatched to a handler in Elaazar participated in a chase together with the IDF after a terrorist had carried out an attack in Efrat.
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This is only a partial list of operations carried out by the Israel Dog Unit over recent days involving rescue search dogs or security dogs.
Serious volunteers needed:
If you are interested in volunteering a year or two to work with dogs breeding, protecting, searching to save lives on Israel, Email back to us or call in Israel 0544876709
Funds needed:
Naturally there are expenses and costs involved to maintain a fleet of security and search and rescue dogs. Vehicles, dorms for volunteers, kennels, gas, electric, food, vet care and so much more
Visit our website and see how you can help:
http://www.israel-civilian-k9-unit.org/
Checks can be sent to Maginei Eretz LMaan Hazulat. POBox 6592 Jerusalem, Israel, 91060
