Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel.

This week, we speak with Federica Sasso, a freelance writer for the Times of Israel, who is covering the story of Israeli-born Eitan Biran, the six-year-old sole survivor of the May cable car crash in northern Italy.

Biran is the subject of a fierce custody battle between his maternal and paternal sides of the family. His parents, baby brother and maternal great-grandparents were all killed in the accident. Eitan has been raised in Italy since he was a baby, where his Israeli-born parents were living while his father studied medicine near Milan. His paternal aunt, also a doctor, lives in the same town where Eitan and his family lived.

Eitan's maternal grandfather whisked him back to Israel in September, and a court case is now unfolding in Israel to determine whether the grandfather violated the Hague Convention and is guilty of abduction.

Sasso, an Italian living in Israel, unfolds the story, the ongoing court cases and the two cultures at battle in this tragic tale.

Times Will Tell podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM, or wherever you get your podcasts.

IMAGE: Aya Biran, third from left, a paternal aunt of Eitan Biran, who survived a cable car crash in Italy that killed his immediate family, arrives to court in Tel Aviv Friday, Oct. 8, 2021. The boy's parents and younger sibling were among 14 killed in May when a cable car slammed into a mountainside in northern Italy. He is now the focus of a custody battle between his maternal grandparents in Israel and his paternal relatives in Italy. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)

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