Majdi Halabi

Majdi Halabi ( Arabic : مجدي حلبي Hebrew : מג'די חלבי) (born 1985), alternatively Majdy Halabi or Majdi Halaby , is an Israeli Druze soldier from the village of Daliyat al-Karmel , located on the slopes of Mount Carmel , who disappeared on duty near Haifa in May 2005. Halabi disappeared on May 24, 2005, at age 19, while attempting to hitchhike from his hometown to his Ordnance Corps camp near Tirat Carmel . At the time of his disappearance, he had served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for five months. The IDF initially considered him to be an absentee, and so his family learned about his disappearance only when his commanding officer came to their home to inquire about his whereabouts. Over the next days, more than one hundred volunteers participated in search efforts in the Mount Carmel area. Halabi was formally declared to be missing in action (MIA) on June 6. Compared to missing Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit , Halabi's disappearance received relatively "little coverage" in the Israeli media . According to a 2007 article in Israel Today , his case was "all but forgotten" nationally and internationally. In response, on May 24, 2007, the two-year anniversary of Halabi's disappearance, Halabi's family and residents of Carmel City held a gathering to raise awareness of Halabi's case and call for increased efforts to locate him. Subsequently, the Born to Freedom Foundation offered a reward of USD 10,000,000 for information leading to Halabi's location. In a 2007 interview with The Jerusalem Post , Halabi's uncle, Samih Halabi—a retired IDF colonel and chairman of the Campaign to Find Missing Soldier Majdi Halabi —expressed a belief that Halabi had been abducted by an Islamic "terrorist organization" and was "being held in Syria, Lebanon or possibly even in Nablus or Jenin in the West Bank". On July 2, 2008, Halabi's family received a telephone call from an inmate in Damon Prison who claimed that Halabi had been abducted and was being held in the vicinity of Nablus in the West Bank . Police officials maintained that the inmate had "no substantial information" regarding Halabi's disappearance, but the Halabi family disputed this claim. No group has ever claimed responsibility for Halabi's disappearance. Ministry of Tourism, State of Israel . Ministry of Foreign Affairs , State of Israel . Born to Freedom Foundation .¹