After the fall of the former Syrian President “Bashar al-Assad’s” regime, “Debra” went to Damascus last year, pinning her hopes on obtaining information about her son. She received a promise from Syrian President “Ahmed al-Shara” to follow up on the case. However, she has reappeared again, this time demanding that the Israeli government disclose any information it has.
In an interview with Israeli Channel N12, “Debra” explained that she asked Prime Minister “Benjamin Netanyahu” to allow her to view the information collected by Israeli intelligence agencies about “Austin,” and added: “It is no secret that the government of Israel has one of the best intelligence services in the world. Since the US government has been open in sharing all the classified information it has about our son, we hope that Tel Aviv will do the same.”
She also addressed an appeal to “Netanyahu” to invite her to Israel to view the intelligence materials related to the case. Israeli officials had previously stated that Israeli intelligence had collected information about “Tice” over the years and shared it regularly with the American side.
In a related context, “Avi Kalo,” a reserve officer with the rank of lieutenant colonel and former head of the Prisoners and Missing Persons Department in the Israeli Military Intelligence Directorate, confirmed that Tel Aviv had received indications over the years of the involvement of the Syrian security services affiliated with the former regime in the case of the American journalist, noting that this information was constantly exchanged with American intelligence.
According to American intelligence information, the latest confirmed information about “Tice” dates back to October 2024, about six weeks before the collapse of the “Assad” regime. However, “Austin’s” family hopes that Israeli intelligence possesses more recent data, or sources in contact with figures from the former regime residing in exile, which may reveal their son’s fate.
It is worth noting that “Austin Tice,” a former captain in the US Marine Corps and freelance journalist who worked for The Washington Post during the early years of the Syrian war, disappeared in August 2012 near Damascus, and was 31 years old at the time.
