According to NBC News, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised the mother of American journalist Austin Tice, who has gone missing, that Israel will not carry out airstrikes close to a covert jail outside of Damascus where she thinks her son might be detained. In an appearance with MSNBC on Tuesday, Debra Tice initially talked about the Israeli government’s pledge to stay away from the region where her son might be.
An Israeli official and a representative for the Tice family affirmed the Israeli leader’s promise to Tice, which was expressed in a letter that Axios first published.
Netanyahu responded to a written request from Debra Tice to the Israeli government earlier this week by writing, “In response to your letter, please rest assured that Israel and its intelligence agencies are fully coordinated with the relevant American authorities on the matter and that the IDF is not active in the area where Austin may be located.”
Bashar al-Assad’s overthrow has given Debra Tice new hope in her search for her son, who vanished in Syria twelve years ago. She thinks Austin Tice might be at Mt. Qasioun prison, which has a secret tunnel that hasn’t been thoroughly investigated and is housed beneath a military museum.
Tice told MSNBC on Tuesday that while they were able to ascend through the tunnel, they would be able to conduct a more comprehensive search inside the mountain if the bombing had not occurred. “They’re really searching for the hidden cells, you know, because there are a lot of them,” Tice added.
While reporting on the ground in Damascus, Richard Engel of NBC discovered a cell where a fellow inmate said Austin had been detained as recently as 2022. According to Debra Tice, she was able to confirm that her son was incarcerated there. Tice told MSNBC, “My kids and I do believe that Austin might have been in that particular cell because of something that was written on the wall.”
Earlier this week, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller stated that the U.S. government does not have anyone on the ground in Syria as part of the hunt for Tice, but he did not rule out deploying U.S. officials if the situation changes in the future. According to Debra Tice, she has been requesting that the United States leave for 12 years.
According to Tice, you won’t get a decent job if you force someone to do something they truly don’t want to do. We want the individuals who jumped in and got right in there to work for us.
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