The Israel Defense Forces launched a new campaign on Sunday aimed at
urging soldiers to refrain from hitchhiking, in an effort to prevent
abductions.
Billboards with the campaign’s slogan, “Don’t catch a hike. The hike
might catch you,” [the Hebrew expression for hitchhiking is "litpos
tremp" literally "catching a hike", ed.] will appear at military
bases, on trains, buses and main roads. The campaign will last for
the next two weeks and will be re-launched again in a month and a
half. It is intended to reach all IDF soldiers, combat and non-
combat, as well as their families.
The IDF set up a website for the campaign, featuring a movie of a
kidnapped soldier reading his abductors’ demands to release all of
the “freedom fighters” in Israeli prisons.
The soldier is last seen saying, “Sorry, mother.”
“This campaign is the first in many years that we are leading in this
area. The goal of the campaign is to inspire changes to the travel
habits of soldiers, by having them understand the risk directly and
from their families,” explained IDF Spokesperson, Brigadier General
Yoav Mordechai.
