Testimony by Sarah Ka'atabi (Israel's sister):

My parents immigrated from Yemen in 1948 with my older sister Mazal who was 3 years old and my sister Margalit who was a year old.

When they arrived in Israel they were taken to the Ein Shemer Transit Camp, where they lived in a tent.

I remember my mother always telling me how the mud came up to their knees.

My mother became pregnant with Israel when they already lived in Israel, and she gave birth to him in the transit camp.

After he was born, my mother took Israel to the tent and raised him there for 8 months.

After 8 months my mother took Israel to the clinic in the transit camp for a routine check-up of weight, height and so on. The medical team said the child does not look well and needs hospital care, and they took him to Tzriffin Hospital.

Over the years my mother told me over and over again how she came to visit him a few times a day, every day, and was only allowed to see him through a window.

One day when my mother arrived she was told Israel needs a blood donation. She went to tell my uncle Zecharia (brother of my late father), and they both came to the hospital so that my uncle could give the blood. When they arrived there, Israel was no longer in the bed. My mother asked, 'Where is my baby' and was told that he was dead. When she asked to see him they said he was already taken and did not show her a body. My mother stayed in the hospital and started to cry. She kept asking 'Where is my child?'. The nurse told her there was nothing to be done, and asked her to go home.

My mother was vulnerable, and she believed the medical team though she couldn't understand what was going on: only minutes earlier she had seen her child alive and breathing.

Israel was 8 months old when he disappeared.

My parents died without knowing what happened to their child. They lived in sorrow all their lives as did we, the daughters.

My mother lived all her life with a broken heart.

We are five sisters, one died 11 years ago.

We grew up without even one brother who could continue that generation and say Kadish (prayer for the dead, which can only be spoken by men) over our parents' and sister's graves.

Their souls are in heaven.