Israel’s army announced on Tuesday that after 44 years, remains of the body of Yehuda Katz, an Israeli soldier who went missing in the “King of Jacob” battle during the First Lebanon War in 1982, have been found and identified.

Katz was the last soldier from that battle who remained on the list of missing persons.

Katz, along with Zekharya Bomel and Zvi (Tzvi) Feldman, had gone missing on June 11, 1982 in the Bekaa region of Lebanon. Bomel’s body was transferred from Syria to Israel in 2019 with help from Russia, and Feldman’s remains were also discovered in May 2025 during a secret operation by the Mossad and the Israeli army deep inside Syrian territory, and returned to Israel.

With the identification of the remains of Yehuda Katz’s body, the case of the three main missing soldiers from the “King of Jacob” battle will be effectively closed after more than four decades.