The government expects "full cooperation" from Israel over the case of six-year-old Eitan Biran, the sole survivor of a cable car crash in northern Italy who was allegedly abducted by his maternal grandfather and flown to Tel Aviv last week.
"The foreign ministry is following the case extremely closely in coordination with our embassy in Tel Aviv," foreign minister Luigi Di Maio stated on Friday in a newspaper interview.
"In the interests of the child, we have requested maximum collaboration from Israeli authorities and we expect full cooperation," Di Maio told La Repubblica.
Shmulik Peleg reportedly spirited Eitan out of the country on a private jet from Lugano, Switzerland, using the child's Israeli passport, after driving across the border from Italy
Eitan's paternal aunt Aya Biran-Nirko, who lives in Italy and was granted custody of the boy in June after he was released from hospital.
The boy, who has lived in the northern city of Pavia since he was 18 months old, is at the centre of a bitter custody dispute between Biran-Nirko and his maternal relatives in Israel.
Eithan's parents, younger brother and two great grandparents were among 14 people killed when their cable car plunged to the ground in the tragic accident near Stresa, on Lake Maggiore, on 23 May.
