Within the work of a special committee established in the Knesset to investigate the disappearance of children from families of Yemenite and Balkan extraction, army archives of 120 secret files from that period will be transferred to said Knesset committee.
It should be noted that up until 1953, many of the immigrant transit camps which housed Yemenite families were administered by the army. In addition, hospitals with children from the maabarot were also run by Zahal. Thus, for example, the Sheba hospital was referred to at that time as Hospital No. 5 and was administered by the army. This is why the special committee headed by MK Nurit Koren held a work visit to the Zahal archives and the security network in order to find source material from that period.
In the course of the tour, the committee team found hundreds of secret files which were never reviewed or publicized, and after studying those documents, many of them were xeroxed on the spot. The Archives director, Ilana Alon, stated that the Archives would cooperate and allow access to all of the files contained there to the representatives of the Knesset committee to enable it to continue to examine the relevant cases of that period. She said that all of the 120 files which were already scanned during the visit and deal with the administration of the transit camps and hospitals would be transferred in total to the committee's team.
After all the committees over the years, there is still secret material to be found.
