The remains of IDF soldier Yehuda Katz, who disappeared during the 1982 Battle of Sultan Yaqub and remained missing for more than four decades, have been located, the IDF announced Tuesday.
Military representatives informed Katz’s family that his remains had been identified, bringing an end to one of Israel’s longest-running cases involving a soldier missing in action.
Katz had been the final soldier from the Battle of Sultan Yaqub whose fate had remained unresolved. He disappeared during the fierce fighting in Lebanon 44 years ago and had been listed as missing ever since.
The discovery concludes a decades-long effort by Israel’s military and intelligence agencies to determine the fate of the three soldiers who vanished during the battle. In 2019, the remains of Zechariah Baumel were brought back to Israel in an operation facilitated with Russian assistance.
Six years later, in 2025, the Mossad carried out a classified operation that succeeded in recovering the remains of Zvi Feldman and returning them to Israel.
Katz, Baumel and Feldman all disappeared following the Battle of Sultan Yaqub on June 11, 1982. The fighting took place near a strategic crossroads south of the Lebanese village of Sultan Yaqub in the Bekaa Valley during the First Lebanon War.
The unresolved status of the three soldiers remained a painful national issue for decades. In 2004, then-IDF Chief Military Rabbi Rabbi Yisrael Weiss determined that the three should be officially designated as “fallen soldiers whose place of burial is unknown.”
Their families challenged that determination, however, petitioning against the ruling. The decision was subsequently withdrawn, leaving the three officially classified as missing as efforts to locate them continued.
