The Israeli military announced on Tuesday the recovery of the remains of Yehuda Katz, the last of three soldiers missing since the 1982 battle of Sultan Yacoub in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, ending a search that lasted more than four decades.
Katz disappeared during a six-hour armored clash in June 1982 between Israeli forces and Syrian troops, a battle that left 30 Israeli soldiers dead and more than 20 tanks destroyed. His return resolves the fate of the final missing soldier from that engagement, following the repatriation of Zachary Baumel in 2019 with Russian assistance and the recovery of Zvi Feldman in a 2025 covert operation.
The circumstances of Katz's recovery were not detailed. Israel later freed two Syrian prisoners in an apparent exchange linked to an earlier repatriation from the same battle.