The Israel Defense Forces confirmed on Monday that it had recovered belongings believed to belong to Maj. Yehuda Katz, who has been missing since a battle in Lebanon in 1982.
Katz was one of three Israeli soldiers who went missing following the Battle of Sultan Yacoub on June 11, 1982. The remains of the other two, Sgt. Zachary Baumel and Sgt. Zvi Feldman, were recovered in 2019 and 2025, respectively.
Rabbi David Turgeman served in Katz’s armored platoon when they drove into a Syrian army ambush that day. By the time Israeli artillery began striking the Syrians and providing relief to the ambushed platoon, Turgeman had already evacuated his tank, he recalled to The Press Service of Israel.
“I used to think, sometimes I had naive thoughts, when reciting the blessing of the revival of the dead. But no—you have to bless the true and good Judge, so ... so that [Katz will] be brought to burial, God willing. When that happens, I’ll come to some kind of closure,” Turgeman told TPS-IL.
Israel continues to search for two other missing servicemen: Lt. Col. Ron Arad, who was last seen after parachuting from a damaged aircraft over Lebanon on Oct. 16, 1986, and Sgt. Guy Hever, who disappeared from his army base in the Golan Heights on Aug. 17, 1997.
IDF special forces attempted to locate findings related to Arad in March of this year, operating deep inside Lebanese territory, but without success , the army said at the time.
Arad has been classified as missing in action since October 1986, when his plane went down over Lebanon. He ejected from his F-4 Phantom II but was captured by the Lebanese Shi’ite terrorist group Amal.
His pilot, Yishai Aviram, was located by an Israeli Bell AH-1 Cobra and escaped by clinging to one of its landing skids as it flew away under heavy enemy fire.
The captured navigator was later handed over to Hezbollah, and later, perhaps to Iran.
In early 2023, it was reported that the IDF had renewed its search for Hever.
The then-20-year-old Hever left his base, located some 25 kilometers from the Syrian border, wearing his uniform and armed with a Galil assault rifle. Shortly thereafter, someone reported seeing a soldier near the shared frontier with Syria.
The IDF initially assumed that he had gone AWOL, noting that Hever was slated to face a minor disciplinary hearing for missing a unit social event, the latest in a string of infractions.
JNS contributed to this report.
