"They parked the car and fled": The dramatic call in the Eldar Dayan case | First publication

A new transcript from the call to the police dispatch center reveals that a report was received in real-time about the abandoned vehicle, the shattered windshield, and bloodstains at the scene where Eldar Dayan was last seen. The remains of Dayan, 23, from Dimona, were located about two weeks later near the gas station, after the case was handled by several units and districts, and now retired police officers are criticizing the way the search was managed.

In the transcript of the call, published today (Thursday) for the first time, a citizen is heard reporting a vehicle abandoned at a gas station in Petah Tikva and bloodstains seen on its windshield. "I am at a gas station in Petah Tikva. About half an hour ago, a car entered the station with a broken windshield. Apparently, someone got hit. The car is now in the gas station parking lot," he said. The dispatcher asked him: "What happened that you need a patrol car?", and the citizen replied: "They entered with the car, the entire windshield was broken and there was blood on it, real blood. They parked the car and fled."

Phone call to the police before Eldar Dayan's disappearance (Photo: Alon Hachmon, security cameras)

Later, the dispatcher asked for the station's address, and the citizen provided: "Paz gas station in Petah Tikva, Natan Shifris, Yarkonim junction." The citizen confirmed that the incident occurred about half an hour earlier and the vehicle was still at the scene. The dispatcher asked if he had seen the occupants of the car fleeing and the bloodstains himself. The citizen clarified: "Personally, no. Someone told me, so I said I would report it." At the end of the call, the dispatcher announced that the report had been forwarded to the officers in the field.

"It's a very strange story"

"They should have concentrated the entire investigation of this case of the search for Eldar Dayan in only one unit," said Y.K., a former police officer with the rank of Rav-Pakad (Major), who is highly regarded in the Southern District. "It's a very strange story. They gave it to the care of two, three, or more units, both in Dimona and to investigative units in the Center. I don't know why they acted like that. In the middle of the week, they even transferred the investigation to a unit in the Sharon area. They should have started checking and investigating from the moment they saw their presence in the convenience store at the gas station, where the incident began to unfold. There was footage from there. Later they said he had a conversation with his father. They raised a hypothesis early on that his friends murdered him. It's a very strange story."

Shilat Naim, Eldar Dayan's mother, at the scene where the body was found (Photo: Hodiya Ran, Walla)

Retired Nitzav-Mishne (Colonel) Efraim Ehrlich, known as "Kremshnit," also criticized the conduct of the search. "The police say they invested efforts and resources. I don't know if that was the case. I won't fall off my chair if it turns out those actions didn't happen. They set up a command post, they didn't set up a command post, I don't know. I'm not really involved in the details. I also have no idea how they found the body. In such cases, I always remember the sad story of Inbal Amram, of blessed memory," Ehrlich told Maariv.

Inbal Amram, 20, was murdered in 2006 by a resident of Qalqilya during an attempt to steal her car. She was on her way to pick up her little sister late at night, but did not reach her. Her father arrived at the police station to file a complaint, and there he was told to wait 48 hours. After he activated a relative who served in the police, the search for her began at three in the morning. Her phone was located near the Glilot junction, and her car was located during a helicopter scan, with Amram inside without signs of life after being stabbed in the throat.