Jabal the bodega cat is home after Brooklyn neighbourhood search

Three-month-old Jabal has returned to his Park Slope bodega after five days, closing a community search that spread from shop flyers to national news.

Edited by Scoop · 5 minute read · 15 September 2026

A small white kitten is back behind the counter in Brooklyn, and a neighbourhood can finally stop looking. Jabal, the three-month-old bodega cat taken from outside Eighth Street Mini Market last Thursday, was reunited with owner Imad “Jimmy” Innab on Tuesday.

The Guardian’s updated original report includes photographs of Innab holding Jabal after his return. The reunion closes five days of uncertainty that began with shop surveillance footage, moved through hand-made posters and local social feeds, and drew coverage across New York and beyond.

The route home is still only partly public. The people shown carrying Jabal away have not been identified in the reporting reviewed by theTailed, and the exact handover has not been described. What is clear is the outcome: Jabal is back at the Park Slope shop where customers had made his absence their business.

A morning outside the shop became a five-day search

CBS New York reported that Jabal wandered just outside the Eighth Street Mini Market as the Innab family opened the shop on Thursday 10 September. Surveillance footage showed a man and woman walking away with the kitten, who appeared to squirm while being carried.

Moe Innab told CBS that his father became worried when he could not find Jabal and checked the surveillance recording. The family offered a $500 reward for the kitten’s safe return, with no questions asked.

The available footage supports saying that Jabal was carried away; it does not establish the pair’s intentions or a criminal finding. No arrest, charge or formal identification is reported in the sources reviewed for this article.

Park Slope turned a missing kitten into shared work

Neighbours printed flyers, shared images from the shop camera and watched for Jabal around the area. The Guardian reported that one neighbourhood forum post drew about 1,000 upvotes and more than 240 comments, while customers and residents helped keep the search visible.

NBC New York’s report on Tuesday described the campaign spreading well beyond the block. One neighbour said a former local resident now living in Paris had called after seeing the story online. That is evidence of the story’s reach, not a measured total for everyone who followed it.

Innab has run the market for nearly four decades, according to the reporting. The response was not only affection for a kitten: neighbours described the shopkeeper as part of the community and rallied around a person they knew was hurting.

Why Jabal’s disappearance landed so heavily

Jabal had been at the shop for about a month. He arrived after Victoria, the market’s previous cat, died in June following 17 years there. Innab told reporters that the loss of Victoria made Jabal’s disappearance particularly difficult.

The kitten was due to be microchipped, according to the family’s account reported by CBS. That timing became part of the story, but it should not be turned into blame: a microchip can help identify an animal when scanned, yet it does not track a pet’s live location.

Bodega cats occupy an unusual place in New York life—working around small food shops while also becoming familiar neighbourhood characters. Jabal’s search travelled because it joined that wider affection to a very specific face, shop and owner.

The promised return finally became a reunion

By Monday, the shop had received a call from someone claiming to know who had Jabal. The kitten did not appear before closing that night, so the story remained unresolved when several reports first ran.

On Tuesday afternoon, neighbour Dan Janzen sent The Guardian photographs of Innab holding and kissing Jabal. The outlet updated its article to record the return and quoted Janzen saying he wished every story could end as happily.

The distinction matters for anyone following a developing pet story: an expected return is not a reunion until the animal is actually back and that outcome is verified. In Jabal’s case, the photographs and named first-hand account provide that final step.

What is known—and what remains private

Jabal is home. The public reporting does not explain who returned him, where he spent the five days or whether he received a veterinary check. Those gaps are not invitations to identify private individuals from circulating images or to repeat speculation about motive.

The useful ending is narrower and kinder. A shop checked its camera, a family asked for help, neighbours kept the appeal moving, and the kitten came back. Innab told The Guardian that the support “means everything” to him.

For Park Slope, the familiar counter has its smallest regular back. For everyone who followed the search from elsewhere, the central question has an unusually uncomplicated answer: Jabal is home.

Sources and update record

Published 15 September 2026. The Guardian’s original and updated report, CBS New York’s first-hand video report and NBC New York’s developing coverage were checked on 15 September. The Guardian update at 12.50 EDT supplied the confirmed reunion peg. The illustration is conceptual and does not depict Jabal, Innab or any person shown in surveillance footage.