During the early days of the state, from 1948 to 1954, hundreds of babies and toddlers of families of Mizrahi descent, mostly from Yemen, mysteriously disappeared during the massive wave of immigration at the time. In the vast majority of cases, parents were told in the hospital that their newborn baby had died, though they never received any official confirmation.

Over the years, families have claimed that their children were in fact kidnapped and given away or sold off to Ashkenazi families.

At the ceremony on Wednesday, Hanabi termed this a “big day to correct a big injustice.”

The reason this is happening now, he said, “is that we feel a moral need to reveal the truth.”