Escape from Tulkarm

 

She was born 48 years ago to a traditional Jewish family in the city of Lod. Emotional distress at that time led her to a rash and disastrous step, causing her parents and the entire family to cut off all contact with her.

 

For 28 consecutive years, Dina daughter of Leah stayed in a remote Arab village in the Tulkarm district. None of her family members knew her whereabouts. Over the years, Dina was declared missing by the Israeli authorities. At one point, the authorities summoned her parents to the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Abu Kabir to supposedly identify her body. The identification failed, and her parents could have remained ignorant of their daughter's fate indefinitely.

 

Three weeks ago, contact was unexpectedly made between Dina and a relative of hers. This was the first sign of life her family received from her after 28 consecutive years of complete severance. This was the stage when the organization Yad L'Achim came into the picture. The relative contacted Yad L'Achim's emergency hotline, reported about Dina being captive all these years, provided her phone number, and shared all the information she had. Yad L'Achim was thrilled to discover that the woman's full name was indeed Dina daughter of Leah.

 

The details gathered by Yad L'Achim were harsh and inconceivable. It turned out that Dina suffered from severe violence, unfamiliar even to veteran social workers at Yad L'Achim. It reached the point where recently her husband aggravated his conduct toward her and punished her brutally. He tied her to a tree for 13 hours and in his wrath did not allow anyone to approach or even offer her water to drink. "Everyone should see what will happen to you if you dare to leave without permission again," he shouted angrily. When Yad L'Achim managed to contact Dina, she cried and pleaded desperately: "Enough is enough. Please, rescue me from here. I beg to return to my people and my homeland."

 

Yad L'Achim began devising a plan to rescue Dina and her two young children, an eight-year-old son and a ten-year-old daughter, while their older siblings remained behind for the time being. A connection made with a senior officer from the Liaison and Coordination Headquarters resulted in the issuance of a special permit for the mother and children to stay in Israel. The soldiers at the checkpoint received special instructions to open it with the appearance of the rescue vehicle carrying Dina and her two children.

 

This week, on Monday morning, the opportunity came. The night before, Dina received a valuable gift from her Arab husband: 12 shekels—to supposedly take a taxi with her two young children to nearby Tulkarm for medical treatment, according to the version she gave him.

 

Following prior instructions, Dina boarded a service taxi with her two children under the guise of heading towards Tulkarm. Two minutes after leaving the village, Dina got off the service taxi and boarded the rescue vehicle waiting for her at the roadside. The vehicle sped towards the checkpoint, a journey that lasted close to an hour.

 

Following the tradition instituted by the Chair and founder of Yad L'Achim, Rabbi Shalom Dovber Lifshitz, of blessed memory, upon Dina notifying by cellphone that she boarded the service taxi, an order was given to all Yad L'Achim activists wherever they were to stop their work and recite chapters of Psalms for the sake of Dina daughter of Leah and her two children, who needed a great salvation.

 

The moment the phone call was received from the soldiers manning the military checkpoint with the message "We see her with the children," immense relief descended upon the command center. A few moments later, the rescue vehicle crossed the passage, its wheels came to a stop, and Dina and the two children emerged from it. She burst into tears, combining tears of joy over her unbelievable release after 28 unbearably difficult years along with grief, pain, and concern for the fate of the children who for now remained far from their mother, their nation, and their homeland.

 

Dina and the children were greeted by social workers from Yad L'Achim, headed by S', who had maintained phone contact with her for the past few weeks right under the hostile Arab husband's nose. Dina recounted that during the rescue drive, when she first revealed to her young children that the journey was one-way and they were heading to Israel, the children, who had themselves endured unspeakable suffering over the years, erupted in cries of joy, pleading: "Mom, promise us that we won't have to return here anymore." As they drank cold water and calmed down from the immense tension surrounding them in recent weeks, climaxing over the last hour, Dina removed the galabiya and bandil, asking Yad L'Achim's activists "to throw it in the trash." Instantly, her authentic Arab appearance vanished, revealing an Israeli daughter beginning her first step back to her people and homeland. At that moment, no eye remained dry, and even the eyes of the tough soldiers manning the checkpoint were tearful.

 

Later that day, Dina was expected to participate in a long and extensive meeting with the police to give testimony about her Arab husband. At the end of the investigation, the Israeli police sent a complaint to the Tulkarm police about the human beast operating in their area. No one in the police deluded themselves that this would affect the Palestinian police, but it was inevitable so that if and when he dared to infiltrate Israeli territories, he would be immediately arrested.

 

Dina and her children are currently staying in a secured hideout apartment in the center of the country. "Our professional staff is set for a long and substantial journey to place Dina daughter of Leah and her children on the right path," they said at Yad L'Achim this week. "Meanwhile, we are providing them with plenty of warmth, giving them all the necessary tools, and starting the journey with them, step by step, back to the people of Israel on the way up to Beit El."

 

Yad L'Achim praised the involvement and dedication of former Interior Minister Eli Yishai at all the bureaucratic stages preceding the rescue. "The emotional rescue that took place this week," said Yad L'Achim, "again illustrates the plight of thousands of daughters of Israel currently held captive in Arab villages, clamoring for salvation. We will continue to use all the tools at our disposal to bring about their redemption from captivity and their emergence from darkness to light, alongside ongoing intensive educational activities to prevent and uproot this scourge."