ISRAEL: Searching for Rose

Last week began with a cryptic report of concern for the wellbeing of a 4-year-old girl missing from Netanya. Within 24 hours this became a black drama involving several generations of two families from different countries and religions.

At first, a gag order had been in place blocking publication of all details but the basics: Rose hadn't been seen since May but was reported missing by a relative two weeks ago, and the police were deeply concerned for the child's life. At the same time, reports of unusual mass-scale searches along the Tel-Aviv Yarkon river began piling up. 

Few things get Israelis going like a gag order. The combination of the Internet, an avid news addiction and a small country produced an instant civilian army of independent investigative reporters. The French media started reporting too, and the gag order rapidly unraveled before being lifted by the police entirely, revealing the full extent of the suspicions: Rose's grandfather had killed her and thrown her body into the river.

Horror enough on its own. But the nation continued to be shocked by further details that exposed a family with every skeleton in the book.

Marie-Charlotte and Benjamin met very young in their native France and were a happy if teen-aged couple with a baby girl named Rose. Benjamin's mother felt the time was right to reunite her son with his father, whom he had never known. The young family moved to Israel for a new beginning, which became the beginning of the end. Within months, a betrayed Benjamin returned to France with his daughter. Marie had fallen for his father, Roni, and stayed in Israel. A few years later, she fought French family courts to regain custody of her daughter, taking her back to Israel, where she had two more children by her father-in-law.

They did not live happily ever after. The girl was difficult, the mother alienated, the grandfather manipulative and aggressive and relations between all very strained. The girl had been entrusted to her great-grandmother for several months. Claiming that she hadn't been able to contact the child since she was taken from her care one day in May, it was she who recently contacted child services, who ultimately contacted the police. Marie didn't press Roni for details when he told her he had given the girl to a boarding school.

Israelis are appalled by every aspect of the story. Besides the obvious ones about the darkness of the human soul, people have questions about social services, bureaucracy, police procedures, citizens' involvement, criminal proceedings issues. How can a child just disappear? Do authorities monitor children before they enter the formal education system at 5? Minors of unclear citizenship status? Did the police move too slowly? Where were the neighbors?

And what if they never find her?

Roni confessed to accidentally killing Rose and then casting her into the river in a suitcase. Authorities say they are increasingly concerned that he is lying about the body to reduce his charges. In Israel, it is possible to indict someone for murder without locating the victim. But the law was also recently amended to demand corroborating evidence for a murder conviction to avoid convictions based on confessions alone, which may have been made under pressure.

As for pressure, many angry citizens are explicitly calling for police brutality, injection of "truth serum," and the death penalty.

For a week, divers have been combing the murky waters of the Yarkon. Police staff have canceled planned vacations, and dogs and mediums are being used along with the highest-tech means. Authorities are considering a plan to drain or dam part of the river, causing some commentators to protest the costly searches and suggest that funds be used to prevent the next tragedy. The Yarkon river continues to the sea; strong sea-bound currents were recorded the day of the incident, raising concerns that the body may have been carried to the ocean, if indeed it was disposed in the river.

Meanwhile, an entire nation is following the search and a case as mired and noxious as the river bottom. The newspapers are filled with the story, apologies to Rose that society failed her and advice from professionals as to how to explain such news to children.

The police have named the search operation "the name of the Rose."

-- Batsheva Sobelman in Jerusalem

Photos: From top, an Israeli plain-clothes policeman holds a photograph of missing French citizen Rose Ron, age 4, in Tel Aviv. Credit: Ariel Schalit / Associated Press; Middle, an undated Israeli police handout of 4-year-old Rose, the daughter of a French woman who had immigrated to Israel; Bottom, an Israeli woman looks at the front page of the Ha'artez daily newspaper in a Jerusalem cafe. Credit: Mihal Fattal / EPA.