After 44 years, Israel has located the remains of fallen IDF soldier Yehuda Katz in Lebanon. Katz's family has been updated.
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.
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.
'Why wasn't Yehuda returned?'
"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."