Thirty-eight years to the day after the father of a missing Israeli soldier asked the Rebbe for a bracha for his son, on 8 Elul 5748, his body will be brought to burial this Friday, 8 Elul. For a family that waited decades for this day, the circle has finally closed.

Staff Sergeant Yehuda Katz was finally recovered after 44 years of searching and an intensive, ongoing intelligence operation that spanned decades, involving the IDF, Mossad, and generations of officers who refused to close the file. He had been missing since the Battle of Sultan Yacoub in 5742 (1982).

Yehuda Katz was born in 5719 (1959) in Ramat Gan to Yosef and Sarah Katz, Holocaust survivors who rebuilt their lives in Eretz Yisrael. He learned in Yeshivat Nachalim and later in Yeshivat Kerem B’Yavneh, and served in the IDF Armored Corps through the Hesder program. Those who learned with him described him as a serious talmid and a natural leader among his peers.

He was 22 years old, just ten days from finishing his military service, when he was sent into the fighting at Sultan Yacoub. The night before the battle, sensing the fear among the soldiers around him, Yehuda gathered them together and gave a shiur on the halachos governing the conduct of a Jewish soldier going into battle, based on the Rambam.

Afterward, he led them in singing Tehillim, perek 23: “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, because You are with me.”

The next day, June 11, 1982, Israeli armored forces entered the Bekaa Valley near Sultan Yacoub and were overwhelmed by Syrian forces in a chaotic nighttime battle. Twenty soldiers were killed, dozens wounded, and three disappeared entirely: Yehuda Katz, Zachary Baumel, and Zvi Feldman.

Katz’s tank was hit and caught fire; the crewmates who survived could not say with certainty whether he was still alive in the moments before they were forced to abandon it.

For the next four decades, the fate of the three men became one of the most painful and unresolved questions in Israel. Governments changed, wars came and went, and still the file stayed open. Israeli intelligence pursued lead after lead, working through captured testimony, old archives, and shifting political circumstances across the region, refusing to accept that the men could never be found.

Zachary Baumel’s remains were finally recovered in 2019, and Zvi Feldman’s remains were recovered in 2025. That left Yehuda Katz as the last of the three still missing.

About two years ago, IDF Unit 9900 began examining vast archives of satellite imagery of Syria and Lebanon, tracing the fate of Katz’s tank after it was abandoned. Intelligence efforts dating back to 2014 had already determined that Katz’s remains followed a different path than Baumel and Feldman. The investigation ultimately involved Military Intelligence, the Mossad, and several non-Jewish individuals. This week, the long search finally reached its end.

Six years after his disappearance, on 8 Elul 5748, his father Yosef came before the Rebbe during dollar distribution. Standing before the Rebbe, he broke out in tears and asked for a bracha for his son who was still missing.

“I am the father of Yehuda Yisroel Nachman, the soldier who for six years has been in the hands of the enemies,” the father said. “I beg of you, Rebbe, in the seventh year the seventh soldier goes out free.”

The Rebbe blessed him with the words: “May there be good news. May you have a ksiva vchasima tova. Since it is a good chasima, everything is included in it, all good things.”

Now, 38 years to the day after that bracha was given, Yehuda is finally coming home. His levayah and burial will take place this Friday, 8 Elul, bringing to a close a 44-year search for the missing soldier

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