Grandfather defends taking boy from cable car crash to Israel

The wreckage of a cable car after it collapsed near the summit of the Stresa-Mottarone line in the Piedmont region, northern Italy (Luca Bruno/AP)

The grandfather of a six-year-old boy who survived a cable car crash in Italy that killed his immediate family and is now the target of a bitter custody battle has defended his decision to spirit the child off to Israel.

Eitan Biran’s parents and younger sibling were among 14 killed in May when a cable car slammed into a mountainside in northern Italy.