IDF Resumes Search for Soldier Missing 19 Years

The IDF said on Sunday it would launch another round of its searches for Sgt. Guy Hever, who mysteriously went missing almost 20 years ago,

The Times of Israel reported.

On August 17, 1997, Hever, 20, left his post in the Golan Heights, wearing his uniform and armed with a Galil assault rifle, and hasn’t been seen or heard from since.

From Monday to Wednesday, the army will conduct “focused searches” in the Golan Heights and the mountainous upper Jordan Valley nearby, the IDF said. There was no immediate indication that the effort is based on any new evidence.

“Over the years, a large number of efforts have been put into locating the soldier, which continue until today, in terms of investigations, searches and intelligence work,” the army said. Divers were sent to check the reservoirs in the area; the army has set fire to minefields in the area to see if they would yield some clue as to his fate. But not a trace was found.

“This is harder than grief. It’s something that is not resolved,” his mother, Rina Hever, told The Times of Israel in 2012. “I have not the shadow of a doubt that he’s alive.”

She is cynical about the IDF’s assurances that they are doing all they can to find out what happened to her son.

“They’ll tell you they’re losing sleep over this,” but she said she didn’t believe them.