Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked announced Sunday that she plans to explore ways to declassify additional files on the disappearance of hundreds of mostly Yemenite children in Israel in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
In a case that has sparked controversy for decades, hundreds of babies and toddlers went missing between 1948 and 1954, the early years of Israel's statehood, often from hospitals or medical clinics. Their parents were told the children had died, but received no bodies for burial or death certificates. The children were allegedly kidnapped and put up for adoption.
The government unsealed some of the documents in the case in late 2016.
At the time, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, "This is an open wound that continues to bleed for those families who were left in the dark, not knowing what happened to their children. Those families seek the truth and want to know what happened. I believe it is time to find out what happened and to right this wrong."
So far, some 3,500 files containing over 200,000 documents have been made public.
Shaked convened a special meeting of the Ministerial Committee on Classified Archival Material on Sunday to explore the issue further.
The meeting focused on the need to find out whether additional material can be found in the archives of the Israel Police, the Mossad intelligence agency, or the Military Archives, the last because of the Medical Corps' involvement in treating the children in the early 1950s.
Shaked also asked the State Archives to prepare a review of the declassification process involved in the case for the committee's next meeting, which has yet to be set.
The committee also tasked the State Archives with conducting a comprehensive review of 300,000 classified files on the children's disappearances.
It hopes to have any existing police files declassified. Files in the Military Archives will be subject to a special review to ensure that unsealing them does not compromise individual privacy.
Likud MK Nurit Koren, who heads the Knesset Committee on the Disappearance of Yemenite Children, will be given access to any files authorities say should not be classified, the committee ruled.
Shaked also urged the Women's International Zionist Organization and the Hadassah Women's Zionist Organization to unseal any records they may have, as the ministerial committee cannot order them to do so.
Mossad officers at Sunday's meeting told the committee that there are no files on the case in the intelligence agency's archives.
"The Yemenite children affair is a wound that will not heal in Israeli society's heart and the state has to be an open book about anything that has to do with this case," Shaked said after the meeting.
"Everything about this case has to be declassified. I demand that all relevant state bodies unseal the relevant records."
Koren issued a statement saying, "I welcome the decision to unseal additional classified material. I believe these files will be able to provide additional information and answer some of the families' questions.
"It's clear to me that this is just the tip of the iceberg, and we must continue to work to find the traces of the children who disappeared."
