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MOTHER AND SUSPECT OF KIDNAPPED SISTERS UNDER INVESTIGATION
(iltv)
Israel police located early on Tuesday two American-born sisters who were allegedly abducted by their mother while on vacation in Israel. They were reunited with their father and the mother was taken into custody.
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The search for the girls began after Ofer Goldsmith, reported the girls missing, having cut off communications with him last week, despite an arrangement agreed by the parents in a Pennsylvania court, to transfer them to their father's care.
The sister's grandmother was detained earlier on Monday, for allegedly aiding the mother in her attempt to disappear after the oldest of the two girls, informed her father in a text message before communications were severed, that their mother was planning to kidnap them and had purchased a wig to disguise her appearance.
The parents, both Israeli nationals living in the U.S., have shared custody of the girls since their divorce. The mother arrived with her daughters for a family vacation in Israel, and according to the decision of the court, was to allow the girls to speak to their father on the phone once every day and transfer them to his care 10 days into their trip after he too arrived.
"I've never gone this long without seeing my girls," the father an Israeli national, said. "I am very concerned for their safety," Goldsmith said adding that he had planned a trip to the north where his family lives. He presented the police with a screenshot of his latest communication with the girls before an investigation was launched.
The parents who met and married in Israel, moved to the States ten years ago, where the two girls were born. This was the first overseas trip taken by them since the divorce and was planned according to strict instructions from the courts.