Body of Israeli soldier missing for 44 years recovered

Israel's army has brought home the remains of an Israeli soldier who has been missing in Lebanon for 44 years during a joint operation with the foreign intelligence service Mossad. The armed forces said on Tuesday that they had been searching for decades for the soldier Jehuda Katz, who died in the first Lebanon War. The recovery of his body was now carried out on the basis of “precise information”. The army did not provide any information about where the body was found.

Katz and two other Israeli soldiers had been missing since the Battle of Sultan Jakub in June 1982. In the battle, the Israeli and Syrian armies faced each other in the eastern Lebanese Bekaa Valley near the Syrian border.

In 2019, the body of the missing Zachariah Baumel was brought home and buried. According to Israeli media reports, Israel and Russia had worked for two years to locate Baumel's body in Syria and bring it home.

In May 2025, Zvi Feldman's remains were also found in Syria. According to Mossad and the army, there had previously been “precise indications” in the Feldman case. Information about the exact location and time of the action was not provided. Feldman's body was identified through DNA tests and his relatives were informed, it said.

The search for Katz, the third missing soldier, continued until the end. His remains have now been returned to Israel and, according to the army, identified in an institute for the identification of fallen soldiers under the supervision of the military rabbinate.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had "authorized numerous covert operations over many years to locate Sultan Yakub's missing soldiers." He promised the families of the three soldiers that he would "bring them home."

President Isaac Herzog said he hung a photo of Katz in his office as a "daily reminder of our sacred duty to bring our sons home and leave no one behind." The “open, bleeding wound” caused by the battle of Sultan Jakub could now heal.