Lotfia Zabad, a resident of Baqa al-Gharbiya in her 50s, who was last seen in October 2019, was found alive in France.
Lutfia made contact with her family in Israel early Tuesday morning, thanks to the vigilance of a Lebanese citizen who spotted her wandering the street and managed to bring a happy ending to the painful story.
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According to a report by Furat Nassar on Channel 12, the family turmoil began in October 2019, when Lotfia and her daughter Yasmin went on an organized trip to France. The two entered a restaurant in Paris with members of the group, and upon leaving, the mother disappeared. Attempts to contact her turned up nothing - and she has been missing since.
The family contacted the French police, who then began searching for her, and the Foreign Ministry also tried to help, but the efforts failed - and in the end, the daughter returned to her country alone.
According to the daughter, Zabad suffers from memory loss and therefore apparently had difficulty understanding who she was and where she was, after her tracks were lost - and therefore did not contact her family during this entire period.
Early this morning, the family received an exciting phone call, in which the mother announced: "I'm alive!".
After the renewed connection was established, Zabad spoke with her daughter and other family members via video call from the police station in France - and the two saw each other's faces for the first time in about two and a half years.
""Mother, my soulmate, a thousand times praise and thanks be to God," wrote Yasmin, Lotfia's daughter, today, following the call she received from her mother.
The daughter, Yasmine, said that a Lebanese citizen noticed the lost mother wandering the streets. That woman realized that Zabad needed help and brought her to the police station - where they began investigating the case, until they eventually realized that it was the same woman who had gone missing a few years ago.
""The excitement is indescribable," daughter Yasmin told the Walla website, "as if I had reached the moon, a Lebanese woman was on the line and told me that she was with her in the 12th arrondissement of Paris, and that on Saturday she remembered who she was. As far as we know, she lives like this in all kinds of places, and unfortunately also on the street, but because of her health condition, she didn't know how to tell people who she was and they couldn't help her reach us.".
Yasmin, 31, recounted the circumstances of the disappearance: "It happened during an organized trip that we both took with a group in Paris. I remember it like it was yesterday, and I relive that moment over and over again. We finished eating at McDonald's on the Champs-Elysees, went out into the street, and were supposed to continue to the Eiffel Tower. I had already crossed the road and was waiting for her to cross to my side with the other people, and then someone asked me to take her picture and I was distracted, and when I looked the other way, I no longer saw her.".
""It's a big city, we're in a foreign country, we don't really know who to ask, and we were sure she'd be back in a moment and that it was nothing. But we weren't able to find her.".
""All I want now is to go and bring her home," says Yasmin. "Last night at midnight my life changed. It's impossible to understand the feeling when I heard the Lebanese woman tell me, 'Your mother is with me. We met her, we recognized her, and we want to help you.' I'm still in shock. Mom held the phone and told me, 'I miss you and your siblings very much. I want to go home. Come take me.' I never forgot my mother. I didn't turn to anyone. I turned to all the institutions, I put my phone number so that everyone had it, so that when they found her they would call me immediately, and then it happened.".
