BEIRUT (AP) — An Israeli special force that landed in eastern Lebanon overnight in search of information about a navigator who has been missing for nearly 40 years did not find his remains, the Israeli military said Saturday. The operation left dozens of people dead and dozens more wounded.
Israel has been trying for decades to find out what happened to Ron Arad since he went missing after parachuting from a fighter jet that crashed in Lebanon in 1986. Arad was involved in attacking suspected Palestinian militants. He was captured alive by local gunmen.
The Israeli military did not say where the force landed in Lebanon but the Lebanese army and state media said an Israeli commando force landed on the mountains along the border with Syria before heading to the eastern town of Nabi Chit, where they clashed with Hezbollah and local fighters. Lebanon’s Health Ministry said at least 41 people were killed and 40 wounded overnight in Nabi Chit and areas nearby.
The Lebanese army said three soldiers were among those killed in the exchange of fire. It said four helicopters took part in the operation, two of which conducted the landing. It also reported that residents clashed with the Israeli force while Lebanese troops went on alert and fired light bombs.
A resident of Nabi Chit told The Associated Press that the Israeli force entered the town and dug up a grave in a cemetery before it left. The man who spoke on condition of anonymity out of security concerns had no further details.
The Israeli army’s Arabic spokesman Avichay Adraee posted on X that the force did not find Arad’s remains or any evidence related to him.
Hezbollah said its members clashed with the Israeli force, and that Israel’s air force conducted some 40 airstrikes in the area in order for the unit on the ground to be able to withdraw.
Adraee said the Israeli force did not suffer any casualties.
Missing since 1986
A Shiite Muslim faction called the Believers’ Resistance captured Arad after he landed, and released some photos of him early on before all traces of him disappeared.
Arad was believed to have been held in Nabi Chit until 1988, after which he went missing following a fierce battle between Hezbollah fighters and Israeli troops in the village of Meidoun further south.
In December, a retired Lebanese officer, Ahmed Shukr, disappeared in eastern Lebanon while meeting some people who wanted to buy a plot of land. His family believes Israeli operatives kidnapped him to get information about the case and took him to Israel.
Shukr’s wife and brother told The Associated Press recently that the retired officer does not have any information about Arad’s fate.
An earlier attempt to find him
In 1994, helicopter-borne Israeli commandos landed deep in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley, where they seized the leader of the Believers’ Resistance, Mustafa Dirani, and took him to Israel. Dirani was released 10 years later in a prisoners exchange with Hezbollah.
In 2008, Hezbollah sent to Israel through mediators a report about Arad in which it suggested that he most likely died after escaping from his captors while trying to reach Israel. The Hezbollah report was published by Israeli media outlets at the time.
Elsewhere in Lebanon, Israel’s air force conducted strikes on different parts of eastern and southern Lebanon.
The new airstrikes were the latest since the last round of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah began Monday. The Iran-backed group fired rockets and drones into Israel in retaliation for the killing of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei after Israel and the U.S. began attacking Iran on Feb. 28, triggering the latest war in the Middle East.
On Saturday morning, airstrikes were reported on the southern villages of Zawtar al-Sharqiyah, Arab Saleem and Jibchit. The strike on Jibchit killed six people, including four members of the same family, while in Zawtar al-Sharqiyah five people were killed state news agency said.
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