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A lousy day to be a police detective in search of missing 4-year-old girl By Avirama Golan Tags: Rose It's times like these that you really do not want to be a detective in the central unit. Their work bears no resemblance to what you see on TV series about fighting crime; it is the painstaking and frustrating labor involved in looking for a tiny missing person, just 4 years old, with a grave fear for her life hanging over the search. She disappeared back in May, but the police learned she was missing only two weeks ago. Since then a blanket gag order has surrounded the case, but the investigation and search were and have remained known to the press. The decision to breach the gag order slightly and publish the poignant photo of little Rose added to the anticipation another dimension - a public one - of tension and curiosity and concern. At 4:30 P.M. yesterday search crews set out, for the fourth or fifth time, to sweep one of the areas previously tagged. The heat and humidity were troublesome, tall brambles scratched legs. Teams of four, dressed in civilian clothes and wrinkled blue baseball caps. Advertisement Their minds were not set at ease, to say the least, by having the press along for the search, and by what they viewed as overexposure of the case. Therefore the caps were pulled out of pockets with visible dissatisfaction, when Chief Superintendent Yoav Kottler, head of the central unit detective squad, urged them to wear them so they could tell their people apart from the reporters. So surreal, one detective commented. Something about this mass outing was indeed bizarre. In plain view of passersby strolling leisurely through a pastoral landscape, the search teams fanned out, followed by a pack of photographers. It seems that the police, despite the need to maintain secrecy so as not to undermine the investigation, wants the public to know of its efforts. Maybe also to know about the difficulty it is encountering, despite those efforts. "From the moment we found out," police officials said yesterday, "we went all out: sophisticated equipment, police dogs, beefed-up search teams. And then there was the appeal to the public, which asks anyone who has seen or heard anything to report it." Sixty calls came in yesterday, prompting the dispatch of teams to every part of the country. Somebody saw a girl just like that in the south, a month ago, and somebody else in the north, just this week. Even if there is not much chance that the information is solid, and even if the man or woman calling do not sound credible - the investigators do not permit themselves to pass up a single lead. What is it about this case that has the police in such an uproar? It is enough to glance at Rose's face in the picture disseminated yesterday to understand. If there is a fear that is universally paralyzing, it always has to do with children being harmed. It is hard for us to believe there is such cruelty in the world capable of violating the sacred vow to keep them safe. Every unsolved disappearance of a small child arouses fury and panic and a feeling of helplessness. The mystery created by the gag order, the heavy hints that creep in here and there, and the speculations that abound only increase the sense of dread. But the police had no choice, and the public will have to wait until all the details have been cleared up. Because while this may not be the most shocking case since the state's establishment, as someone termed it this week, it is certainly a convoluted one, and it is doubtful that all of the bits and pieces complicating it will be sorted soon. When darkness fell, all the teams returned to their vehicles and went away empty-handed. Reporters and photographers and consoling bystanders stood by and tried to offer some advice. But the Sisyphean routine of detective work does not work the way it does on-screen, and a dress hem or babyish shoe is not always discovered at the desired moment. Nothing, one of the detectives shrugged in disappointment. On the hood of his car a very little girl, with sad blue eyes and thin light-colored hair, perhaps still alive and perhaps not, smiled from a photograph. Bookmark to del.icio.us   Swing Jews Jewish Democrats go hi-tech to fight anti-Obama 'hate mail.' Where's Rose? Missing girl's mother allegedly told husband to 'get rid of her.'   1.   ros 07:34  |  tur 26/08/08

Read & React Peace Now: West Bank settlement construction nearly doubled this year Responses: 185 Jewish Democrats go hi-tech to fight anti-Obama 'hate mail' Responses: 22 Obama: World must press Iran before Israel strikes Responses: 94 Israeli and American: Why Jews can have more than one home Responses: 48 VIDEO: Barak puts Tel Aviv apartment up for sale for NIS 40 million Responses: 36 More Headlines 23:31 Missing girl's mother allegedly told husband to 'get rid of her' 02:26 Before her disappearance, Rose Pizem suffered 4 years of horror 20:14 Abbas: We can't lose another 7 years searching for peace 01:23 Ever-changing stories of grandfather burdened police 23:17 Livni mocks Barak: I can make your dream of being Education Min. come true 17:04 Jewish Democrats go hi-tech to fight anti-Obama 'hate mail' 23:59 U.S. judge orders release of Cold War spies testimony 23:13 IDF Court sentences ex-Jenin mayor to 6 years in prison for Hamas ties 18:52 YouTube removes clip showing Rhodes youth urinating on Holocaust memorial 20:27 Carter shunted to sidelines at Democratic Convention 19:18 Three teenage boys held on suspicion of raping girl, 14, in Herzliya park 13:29 Israeli and American: Why Jews can have more than one home 01:51 Tel Aviv and Givatayim at war over local beauty spot 00:32 Police detain Israeli for entering Gaza in blockade-busting boat Previous Editions Select Day 26 aug 25 aug 24 aug 22 aug 21 aug 20 aug 19 aug 18 aug 17 aug 15 aug 14 aug 13 aug

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