By RUTH EGLASH
"We need to find out how Rose fell between the cracks," MK Ophir Paz-Pines (Labor), chair of the Knesset Committee on Interior Affairs and Environment, said Wednesday after hearing how Netanya-area police were given information about the girl's disappearance some 11 days before launching an investigation into what could possibly be a murder case involving four-year-old Rose Pizem's mother, Marie, and grandfather, Ronnie Ron.
In a joint session of Paz-Pines's committee and the Knesset Committee on the Rights of the Child, headed by MK Nadia Hilu (Labor), National Supervisor for Child Affairs at the Welfare and Social Services Ministry Hannah Slutzky said that social workers in Netanya and representatives of the non-government watchdog the National Council for the Child were alerted to Rose's disappearance by her great-grandmother, Vivienne Ya'akov, during the last week of July.
After repeated calls to the police by social workers were unanswered, Ya'akov - who was the girl's part-time care-giver - sent a fax on August 3 saying that her great-granddaughter was missing and that she suspected foul play. Only on August 14 did the police launch an investigation into the toddler's disappearance, said Slutzky.
The meeting also heard how social workers didn't even know that Rose existed, after she arrived in Israel less than a year ago following a custody battle between Marie and the girl's biological father, Benjamin Pizem.
Police Cmdr. Ori Wisecoup admitted that the police had been slow to follow up the reports from social services but said an investigation into the process would now be launched.
Welfare and Social Services Minister Isaac Herzog said ministry officials were working with police to improve the flow of information.
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