After 44 years, Israel has located the remains of fallen IDF soldier Yehuda Katz during a covert operation in Lebanon overnight, based on joint Mossad and IDF intelligence collected over several years, the military confirmed on Tuesday morning.
Katz was declared missing during the First Lebanon War, following the Battle of Sultan Yacoub on June 11, 1982. Two other soldiers, Zachary Baumel and Zvi Feldman, were declared missing alongside Katz.
Baumel’s remains were recovered in 2019 with Russia’s help, and Feldman’s remains were recovered in 2025 in a covert Mossad operation.
The IDF explained that the information that led to the operation to locate Katz’s remains started to come in only in recent months. Currently, the IDF cannot share the location of the operation.
More information on the operation and the findings will be released once the IDF has had more time to discuss the findings with the family, who were informed this morning.
IDF sources hinted that the remains found did not include Katz’s complete body, but rather body parts that could be analyzed to confirm Katz’s identity.
Katz’s nephew, Yochai Heiman, said that his family has received information on the findings, but will not draw conclusions until they independently verify the details.
“In our experience, you cannot trust a blind person,” Heiman stated. “After we verify the information, we will know how to respond to the results. It is too early to ask questions about funerals and graves.”
‘Why wasn’t Yehuda returned?’
In an interview with KAN Reshet Bet in 2024, Katz’s sister, Parachia, shared that Syrian forces had taken her brother’s tank and tank commander. The commander’s remains, she said, had been buried in a Jewish cemetery in Damascus before eventually being returned to Israel.
“If Yehuda was in the same situation, why didn’t they return him? Why didn’t they announce him? Where did he go? After all, the tank was in their hands,” she had told KAN at the time. “They returned the tank commander. So where did Yehuda go? Who is looking for him anyway?”
“I only see what I can’t see, and that is the videos of prisoners who are released after 40 and 50 years from prisons in Syria,” Parachia said, referring to the hope that her brother was still alive. “And we have been claiming for years that this is possible and not just a dream.”
Closing a long-open circle
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich praised the IDF’s efforts in locating Katz’s remains, sending his condolences to his family in a Tuesday morning statement.
“There is no other nation or state in the world that has, for so many years, refused to give up and bring its missing soldiers to eternal rest in the grave of Israel,” Smotrich said. “On behalf of the entire people of Israel, I embrace the Katz family and Yehuda’s fellow soldiers who fought in the Battle of Sultan Yacoub in these moving and emotional moments.”
Former deputy defense minister Major (res.) Rabbi Eli Ben Dahan, who fought alongside Katz in the Battle of Sultan Yacoub, said he felt “chills this morning” upon hearing the announcement of the discovery.
“The circle of the great effort to save the armored battalion that was caught in a Syrian ambush has closed. No one is left behind,” Dahan said. “The eternal people are not afraid of a long road.”
Shas Party leader Arye Deri said on Tuesday that he was “moved by the news of the return of Major General Yehuda Katz’s remains, 44 years later.”
“There is no one like the Jewish people, who once again prove their sacred commitment to their sons,” he said. “They do not abandon a single soldier and do everything to bring [them] to the grave of Israel, even after decades.”
Deri thanked the IDF and those involved in the operation “to bring him [Katz] home.”
“May his memory be blessed,” Deri said.
Liora Goldberg-Stern contributed to this report.