Digging in graveyards under fire: New details of Mossad operation to recover remains of IDF soldier in Syria

Israel Defense Forces and the Mossad foreign intelligence agency on Sunday announced that the remains of an IDF soldier, missing since the 1982 Battle of Sultan Yacoub in the First Lebanon War, had been recovered and returned to his family in Israel. 

Sergeant First Class Tzvi (Tzvika) Feldman, a tank operator, was killed in the in the battle, fought in the southern Lebanese village of Sultan Yacoub near the Syrian border, alongside two other soldiers in his tank. More than 20 Israeli soldiers were declared killed or missing following the battle.

“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.”

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

According to the IDF, the return of Feldman’s remains to Israel required a complex and covert operation, based on precise intelligence and the Mossad's unique capabilities, culminating decades of intensive fieldwork and investigation.

The operation, which follows a previous mission in 2019 to recover Sergeant First Class Zechariah Baumel was returned in 2019, and brings long-awaited closure to Feldman’s family.

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

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

The team operated deep inside Syria at the PLO Military Cemetery, where the Palestine Liberation Organization had buried members killed in various conflicts, dozens of kilometers from the Israeli border.

Israeli defense officials also revealed that the mission to bring the remains of Feldman was completed several months ago, during the instability following the collapse of the Bashar al-Assad regime in December 2024. 

Israel already suspected that the bodies of Feldman and Baumel, 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 explained, retrieving their remains and sending them to Israel for genetic testing. After receiving confirmation that the remains belonged to Feldman, a final operation was carried out, and the body was smuggled to Israel. Feldman’s tanker overalls were also located, which helped to positively identify the remains as his. 

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

The remains of another soldier from the tank, Sergeant First Class Yehuda Katz, have not yet been recovered. Defense Minister Israel Katz affirmed that Israel will continue its efforts to bring his remains home.