Destroyed buildings and vehicles are left in the wake of deadly Israeli strikes on Nabi Chit, a village near Lebanon’s border with Syria that is considered a stronghold of the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia.Oliver Marsden/The Globe and Mail
Even in a region-wide war that has been chaotic from the start, Saturday morning’s shootout in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley stands out.
Just before dawn, four Israeli helicopters approached Nabi Chit, a farming town not far from Lebanon’s border with Syria that is considered a stronghold of the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia. Two of the helicopters landed, and the Israeli commandos on board disembarked and headed straight for the local cemetery.
Their mission was to look – once more – for the remains of Ron Arad, an Israeli air force weapons officer who has been missing since parachuting out of his damaged plane during an operation over Lebanon in 1986.
What happened to Mr. Arad is one of Israel’s most enduring mysteries, one the country’s Mossad spy agency has repeatedly tried to solve.
The Saturday raid in Nabi Chit is the deepest Israeli troops have been deployed into Lebanon since the war erupted Monday.Oliver Marsden/The Globe and Mail
On Saturday morning, Israel’s quest to find Mr. Arad’s remains cost the lives of 41 Lebanese.
The Israeli landing in Nabi Chit was spotted by local residents, as well as Hezbollah forces in the area. According to a Hezbollah statement, a battle erupted involving light and medium weapons.
“The clash escalated after the enemy force was exposed,” the statement said. “The enemy resorted to intense fire, launching approximately 40 air strikes, using both warplanes and helicopters to secure the force’s withdrawal from the engagement area.”
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Three Lebanese soldiers and one member of the country’s General Security intelligence service were among those killed, marking the first reported deaths of uniformed Lebanese soldiers in the six-day-old conflict. The Lebanese army has thus far stood aside as Israel and Hezbollah have traded blows, and it wasn’t immediately clear if the dead soldiers had taken part in the firefight in Nabi Chit.
It also wasn’t clear whether the death toll included any Hezbollah fighters, since the militia hasn’t been releasing casualty figures. Hezbollah’s statement said “residents of neighbouring villages” had provided “supporting fire” during the battle.
The Israeli military said it suffered no casualties in the operation.
A large crater caused by a missile strike in the centre of Nabi Chit.Oliver Marsden/The Globe and Mail
The raid was the deepest Israeli troops have been deployed into Lebanon since the war erupted Monday.
In the aftermath, photos emerged online of a freshly dug-up grave in the Nabi Chit cemetery. The upended granite gravestone said Sobhi Hussein Shokr had been buried there in 1989.
The Israeli military acknowledged Saturday that special forces “operated overnight in an attempt to locate” Mr. Arad’s remains but did not find any at the site.
Mr. Arad has been officially missing since his fighter jet was damaged during an operation targeting a Palestine Liberation Organization base in Lebanon. Both Mr. Arad, who was 28 at the time, and pilot Yishai Aviram were able to parachute out.
But while Mr. Aviram was rescued by Israeli troops, Mr. Arad was captured by Amal, a Shia Muslim militia involved in Lebanon’s multisided 1975-1990 civil war. It’s believed he was later handed over either to Hezbollah or Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
He hasn’t been heard from since 1987, when Amal provided photos of him to Israel as proof of life during negotiations for his release. An Israeli military commission into his disappearance found that he likely died around 1995. His last known location was Nabi Chit.
Wehbi Moussawi, a local official, stands in his home in Nabi Chit which was destroyed by an Israeli air strike.Oliver Marsden/The Globe and Mail
A resident of Nabi Chit observes the damage caused by the Israeli raid as a Hezbollah flag protrudes from a pile of rubble.Oliver Marsden/The Globe and Mail
While the Israeli military said Saturday that it would “continue to operate relentlessly, day and night, out of a deep commitment to bringing all of Israel’s sons, the fallen and the missing, back home to the State of Israel,” Mr. Arad’s widow asked that the army not risk the lives of any more soldiers trying to find out what had happened to her husband.
“In our view, the sanctity of life comes before the commitment to return a soldier’s remains for burial. This is also our worldview regarding our loved one who disappeared nearly 40 years ago,” Tami Arad wrote in a Facebook post.
Addressing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu directly, she added: “We ask in the strongest possible terms: Do not order operations that involve even the slightest risk to soldiers.”
The 41 deaths in Nabi Chit pushed this week’s death toll in Lebanon to 294. The country was dragged into the region-wide war Monday when Hezbollah launched a barrage of rockets at Israel in retaliation for the Feb. 28 assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the opening salvo of the joint U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran.