Findings related to fallen soldier Yehuda Katz, the last missing from the Sultan Yacoub battle, have been located

The remains of IDF fallen soldier Yehuda Katz, the last missing from the Battle of Sultan Yacoub, were returned to Israel today after 44 years. Katz was declared missing after the battle on June 11, 1982. The bodies of the other two missing soldiers, Zacharia Baumel and Tzvi Feldman, were previously returned. IDF representatives are updating the family.

The remains of IDF fallen soldier Yehuda Katz, the last missing from the Battle of Sultan Yacoub, were returned to Israel today (Tuesday) after 44 years. Katz was declared missing after the battle that took place on June 11, 1982, on the sixth day of Operation Peace for Galilee, hours before the ceasefire. He was one of three reserve soldiers who went missing following the battle, alongside Zacharia Baumel and Tzvi Feldman. Baumel's body was returned in April 2019 with the assistance of the Russian Ministry of Defense, and Feldman's body was returned on May 11, 2025, in a covert operation by the Mossad. IDF representatives are currently updating the Katz family on the findings. For years, the family waged a struggle to prevent the declaration of Yehuda as a fallen soldier. In an interview with Kan News two years ago, his sister Perachia Heiman-Katz said that the Syrians dragged Yehuda's tank and buried the body of the tank commander in the Jewish cemetery in Damascus, and wondered why Yehuda had not been returned.