Digging in graveyards under fire - News details of Mossad operation to recover remains of Sgt. Tzvi Feldman in Syria

On Sunday, the IDF and the Mossad announced that the remains of an Israeli soldier, missing since the 1982 Battle of Sultan Yacoub in the First Lebanon War, had been found and returned to his family in Israel. 

Sergeant First Class Tzvi (Tzvika) Feldman, a tank operator, was killed in the Battle of Sultan Yacoub, a southern Lebanese village near the Syrian border, fighting against Syrian forces 43 years ago in the First Lebanon War, along with two other soldiers in his tank. Over 20 Israeli soldiers were declared killed or missing following the battle. 

“For decades, Tzvika was missing, and efforts to locate him and the other MIAs from that battle never ceased,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday. “Today, we have brought Tzvika home.” 

“In a special operation led by the IDF and the Mossad, the body of Sergeant First Class Tzvika Feldman was located in the heart of Syria and returned to Israel,” the IDF said in a statement. “Following the recovery, the body was identified at the Military Rabbinate's Genomic Center for Identifying Fallen Soldiers, and the family was notified by the IDF in the presence of the Prime Minister.” 

According to the military, the return of Feldman’s remains to Israel required a complex and covert operation, based on precise intelligence and the unique operational capabilities of the Mossad. 

The return marks the end of an extensive intelligence and field work to locate Feldman’s remains that spanned over four decades. 

The operation, which follows a previous operation in which Sergeant First Class Zechariah Baumel was returned in 2019, brings long-awaited closure for the family. 

The operation’s success was only possible through decades of research, intelligence gathering, and several operations to locate the exact location of the remains conducted in enemy territory. 

On Monday, defense officials revealed that the final operation to recover Sgt. First Class Tzvi Feldman’s remains was carried out by non-Israeli Mossad agents who had been working in Syria for several years already. 

The team members operated deep inside Syria, in cemetery called the PLO Military Cemetery, where the PLO had buried some of its members who had died in various conflicts, dozens of kilometers from the Israeli border. 

The defense officials also revealed that the operation to bring the remains of Feldman was completed several months ago, during the instability following the collapse of the Bashar al-Assad regime. 

Israel already suspected that the bodies of Tzvi Feldman and another soldier, Zechariah Baumell, were buried in the cemetery, due to testimony from one of the gravediggers, and from a written record by an assistant to former PLO leader Yasser Arafat. 

The agents visited the graveyard several times, even “under fire”, the defense officials said, bringing remains out and sending them to Israel for genetic testing. After receiving confirmation that the remains did belong to Feldman, a final operation to remove his remains was carried out, and the body was smuggled to Israel. During the operations, Felman’s tanker overalls were located, which helped to positively identify the remains as his. 

On Monday, Tzvika Feldman’s siblings buried his remains in a ceremony attended by surviving family and IDF officials. 

The remains of the final soldier from the tank, Sgt. First Class Yehuda Katz, have not yet been recovered. 

Defense Minister Israel Katz said Israel would not stop its efforts to return the remains of Yehuda Katz. 

“Just as we returned Zachary Baumel, and today Zvi Feldman, we continue to act in every way to also return Sgt. First Class Yehuda Katz and fulfill our duty for him and his family,” the defense minister said.