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Remains of last missing soldier returned to Israel after 44 years
Yehuda Katz fell in the Battle of Sultan Yacoub in 1982, and his remains were found by the IDF
For 44 years Sarah and Yosef Katz beseeched the world to help discover what had happened to their son, Yehuda, a tank soldier who went missing in the Battle of Sultan Yacoub, during the first Lebanon War of 1982.
This week, the Israeli army announced that in a special operation, led by its military intelligence directorate in co-ordination with Mossad, it had retrieved the remains of Sergeant First Class Katz, and had returned them to Israel for burial. A bitter chapter in Israel’s history has now closed.
Yehuda Katz went missing after the battle, together with two other sergeants, Zachary Baumel and Zvi Feldman, fighting Syrians in Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley. Sultan Yacoub claimed the lives of 21 Israeli servicemen and injured more than 30.
For decades, the families of the three soldiers lobbied whoever they could, in the hope that the men were still alive and kept prisoner by the Syrians. A famous blurry photograph circulated, purporting to show the three men being dragged on top of a captured tank through the streets of Damascus, heckled by jeering Syrians.
But finally, Baumel’s remains were recovered with Russian assistance and returned to Israel in 2019, and Feldman’s remains were recovered by Mossad agents in May 2025.
Early on Tuesday the IDF, without identifying where they were found, said that personal belongings related to Katz had been presented to his family in Israel for identification. Neither Sarah nor Yosef Katz is still alive, so the material went to other members of the family.
The operation was based on intelligence obtained in recent months, according to the military. The IDF added that the finding was made possible due to a “series of intelligence and operational activities that continued for more than four decades, since he fell in battle.”
The IDF Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, said: “The return of Yehuda Katz, the last fallen soldier from the Battle of Sultan Yacoub, is a significant moment for the IDF and for the state of Israel.”
“Decades have passed, but our duty toward our fallen has not changed. We will leave none of our people behind,” Zamir added.
President Isaac Herzog hailed the operation, which he said marked an end to “44 years of waiting, pain and longing.”
Herzog noted that he’d long kept a photo of Katz in his office, serving as “a daily reminder of our holy duty to return our sons home and not leave anyone behind.
“Today I’m thinking in particular of his sister, Prichya, and the whole family,” the president said, in this “painful and emotional moment.”
“The state of Israel didn’t forget him and will never forget its children,” he said.
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