The mother of American journalist Austin Tice, who has been detained in Syria for more than 12 years, reiterated on Monday her call for the Israeli military to stop attacks on the part of Syria where her son may be being held.
“I think it would at least be polite to say that when people are trying to evacuate prisons they probably aren’t bombing them,” Debra Tice told reporters outside the Syrian Embassy in Washington on Monday afternoon.
The call comes days after he made the same appeal in a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In a letter dated December 14, Debra Tice told the Israeli leader that her family had “credible information” that her son may be being held in a prison outside the Syrian capital, Damascus, and that she had requested Israeli forces to withdraw from the area. Urged to stop attacks so rescue teams could search the site.
“We are aware that your forces have conducted an active operation in the area, preventing rescue workers from reaching the prison facility,” they wrote in the letter. the new York Times Published on Monday.
Israeli forces are bombing weapons depots and air defenses in Syria. Israel says it wants to keep military equipment away from extremists.
In the letter, Debra Tice said her son may be being held in a prison under a Syrian military museum in the mountainous Mount Qasiyun area. The prison was connected to the neighborhood and a government palace by a tunnel, he said in the letter.
“We have no way of knowing whether the prisoners there receive food and water. We urge you to immediately cease attacks on this area and deploy Israeli assets to search for Austin Tice and other prisoners. “Timing is of the essence,” she said.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to VOA’s email requesting comment.
But Gal Hirsch, the Israeli government’s chief envoy for hostage matters, said many times That he has received the letter and is coordinating with the US authorities.
Hirsch said, “We will make every effort to assist the United States in bringing hostages and missing people home.”
Austin Tice, a Texas native and former US Marine, has been held in Syria since 2012, when he was detained at a checkpoint in Damascus. Apart from a brief video after his capture, little has been heard or seen of him.
Earlier in December, before the Bashar al-Assad government fell, the Tice family revealed that it had received information verified by the US government, confirming that Austin Tice was still alive and in custody in the Damascus area.
Since Syrian rebels led by the Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) captured Damascus and toppled Assad’s government on December 8, thousands of prisoners have been released from prisons run by the ousted government. .
The release of those prisoners has given hope to the Tice family that Austin will be among them.
“I feel like we’re standing in line, and we’re not the only ones who are still standing in line,” Debra Tice told reporters Monday. “It will take some time.”
Austin Tice is an award-winning freelance journalist and photographer who works for outlets Washington PostCBS and McClatchy. He is the longest-serving American journalist abroad.
US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters on Monday that
The United States has communicated with HTS on the importance of locating Austin Tice, but there are no US government personnel in Syria searching for the journalist.
Miller said, “We have several people involved in trying to find Austin Tice and bring him home, and we have contacted HTS directly to do anything they can to help us find him.” , We would appreciate that very much.”
Syria’s transitional government said last week that the search for Austin Tice was ongoing, and that it would cooperate with the US government in finding Americans disappeared by the former Assad regime.
Outside the Syrian Embassy in Washington, which was forced by the US government to close in 2014 but may soon reopen, Debra Tice told reporters she had never lost hope that her son would return home. Will come.
“I have always had hope. “I never had a millisecond of despair,” he said. “We just need to get all those prisons open, get all those families back together, including us.”
