Avera Mengistu

In 2011, Mengistu began to experience mental health problems after his older brother Masrashau died.

He became withdrawn from his family and friends.

He tied a piece of string around one of his fingers so tightly it cut off the blood flow, causing severe gangrene that led to the amputation of the finger.

He quit his job and refused to accept benefits from the National Insurance Institute.

He also began asking friends for money and traveling alone through various parts of Israel.

At one point, his family considered him missing until police located him almost 200 km away in Tiberias.

His mother cleaned houses for a living, while his father became chronically unemployed, and his parents divorced in 2012.

In a column in The Jerusalem Post, Tal Harris described the Mengistu family as extremely underprivileged and belonging to the poorest socio-economic sector of Israeli society.

Mengistu attended public schools.

After finishing high school, Mengistu worked in a series of odd jobs, including recycling.

He agreed to undergo psychiatric treatment and was hospitalized voluntarily in a mental facility in Beersheba for 12 days in January 2013, but his family did not think he seemed better when he was released.

Five days later, they had him committed involuntarily for a week, but after his release, he threw away his medication.

According to his brother, his condition worsened.

In March 2013, Mengistu was exempted from mandatory military service in the Israel Defense Forces after a medical committee found him unfit for service.

According to a childhood friend, in the year before his disappearance, his condition further worsened, and he began to hurt himself and talk illogically.

Avraham "Avera" Mengistu (Hebrew:, born 1986) is an Israeli man who crossed into Gaza on September 7, 2014.

He was abducted and interrogated by Hamas, and has been missing since then.

His family has stated that he is mentally unstable and had been admitted to a mental hospital in the past.

He had been treated with medication, which he stopped taking a few weeks prior to his crossing.

Mengistu was born in Ethiopia, the fourth of ten children in Haili and Agumesh Mengistu's family.

He made aliyah (i.e., immigrated to Israel) with his family at age five and grew up in a low income neighborhood in Ashkelon, which is 20 km from Gaza.

On September 7, 2014, Mengistu asked his mother to give him money.

When she told him she did not have any, he became angry and left at about noon without saying anything.

He then walked to a beach in Zikim and arrived at the security fence between Israel and the Gaza Strip.

An Israeli patrol who were guarding electrical work spotted him carrying a bag near the security fence with Gaza and let him pass.

One of the soldiers later said he thought Mengistu was a Sudanese refugee who had decided to move to Gaza.

A security camera on an army watchtower noticed him trying to climb the fence, and the patrol that had let him pass earlier was notified.

By the time they arrived, Mengistu had reached the top of the fence.

They called for him to stop and fired a warning shot into the air, but he ignored them and scaled the fence.

He left behind the bag, which was found to contain slippers, a towel, a Bible, and a few other books, one of which had his name on it.

Since then, he has not been seen by any Israeli.

Israel contacted the Red Cross and officials in the Gaza Strip and demanded that Mengistu be returned to Israel.

Initially, a Hamas official said Mengistu was interrogated and seemed to have psychological problems.

Israeli officials said there is "credible intelligence" that Hamas holds Mengistu "against his will".

Later, Moussa Abu Marzouk, deputy chairman of Hamas' political bureau, said in an interview with Al Jazeera that Mengistu wore a uniform, was mentally healthy, and that his case had come up during truce negotiations related to the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict, which took place weeks before the date Israel says Mengistu crossed into Gaza.

In Israel, a blanket gag order regarding the incident was put into place.

It lasted 10 months, until July 9, 2015.

Discussions took place in social media forums and some reports were published on foreign websites.

Some clues about the affair were leaked to different Arabic media outlets, from which the story made its way to international media and was published to Tikun Olam by blogger Richard Silverstein.

The gag order was lifted following a request from Haaretz.