The operations that were not revealed: How Israel tried to solve the mystery of Ron Arad

A New York Times investigation reveals new details about secret Israeli intelligence operations to search for Ron Arad, including the kidnapping of two Iranian generals. The investigation indicates that for decades Israel focused on Iran, despite intelligence assessments that Arad was never transferred there and died in Lebanon in 1988.

A comprehensive New York Times investigation, published in November 2026, reveals new details about secret intelligence operations conducted by Israel for decades in an attempt to discover the fate of missing navigator Ron Arad. The investigation, based on interviews with dozens of intelligence and security officials from Israel, Iran, and the United States, describes two major kidnapping operations: in December 2006, Mossad agents kidnapped Iranian General Ali Reza Asgari in Istanbul, interrogated him aboard a vessel, and eventually killed him and dumped his body in the Black Sea. In September 2021, Israeli agents kidnapped General Abdallah Sabri in Damascus, hid him in a refrigerator crate, and transferred him to Israel for interrogation, after which he was released in South Africa. In both cases, no information leading to a breakthrough was obtained. The investigation reveals a deep intelligence dispute: while in Israel the assessment was that Arad was transferred to Iran, checks conducted by the Shin Bet under Yuval Diskin in 2006 and the IDF's Missing Persons Unit under Avi Kalo in 2014 concluded that Arad was never held by Iran and likely died in 1988 in the village of Nabi Sheet in the Bekaa Valley. Kalo submitted a detailed report to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the end of 2016, but the operations continued. The investigation notes that last December, a former Lebanese security official, Ahmad Shokr, disappeared; he was suspected of possibly holding information about Arad's burial site. During military activity in Lebanon in 2026, Israeli forces raided the village of Nabi Sheet and searched for remains, but did not find them.