By 5 Towns Central Staff

LEBANON (August 18, 2026)

The IDF has informed the family of Sgt. Yehuda Katz that remains believed to belong to the fallen soldier have been located, bringing a decades-long search to a close.

Katz disappeared during the First Lebanon War following the Battle of Sultan Yaqub on June 11, 1982. The battle, fought in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, left Katz and fellow soldiers Zechariah Baumel and Zvi Feldman missing for decades.

Katz was the final soldier from the battle whose fate and burial location remained unresolved. His family spent years awaiting answers as Israeli intelligence and security agencies continued efforts to determine what happened to him.

The other two soldiers were eventually brought home. Baumel’s remains were recovered in 2019 in an operation facilitated by Russia, while Feldman’s remains were returned to Israel in 2025 following a classified Mossad operation.

In 2004, Israel’s Chief Military Rabbi at the time, Rabbi Yisrael Weiss, determined that Katz, Baumel and Feldman should be officially classified as fallen soldiers whose burial locations were unknown. Their families challenged the decision, and the classification was subsequently reversed.

The discovery of Katz’s remains now brings an emotional conclusion to one of the longest-running missing-soldier cases in Israeli history, finally allowing his family to bring him home and give him a proper Kevurah.

May this bring Nechama to the family, and may the Neshama have an Aliyah.