JERUSALEM: The Israeli army said Sunday that the body of a soldier missing for 43 years had been found in the “heart of Syria” and repatriated in a special operation with the Mossad intelligence agency.“In a special operation led by the IDF (military) and Mossad, the body of Sgt. First Class Tzvika Feldman was found in the heart of Syria and brought back to Israel,” the army said in a statement.Feldman went missing along with two other soldiers in the 1982 battle of Sultan Yacoub that pitted Israeli and Syrian forces against each other in the Bekaa region of eastern Lebanon, near the border with Syria.

In a separate statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the efforts to locate Feldman’s body, noting that the search for him and his comrades — Zachariah Baumel and Yehuda Katz — had been ongoing for decades.“Approximately six years ago, we returned for a Jewish burial, Sgt. First Class Zechariah Baumel; today we have returned Tzvika, of blessed memory. We will not cease our efforts to return Sgt. First Class Yehuda Katz, who is also an MIA from the same battle,” Netanyahu’s statement said, adding that the prime minister had personally notified Feldman’s parents. The army statement said that Feldman’s body had been identified by the Genomic Identification Center for Fallen Soldiers of the Military Rabbinate but gave little details of how his remains were located deep inside Syria. “The return of Sgt. Feldman was made possible through a complex and covert operation, enabled by precise intelligence and the use of operational capabilities that demonstrated ingenuity and courage,” the statement said. “This concludes an extensive intelligence and operational effort that spanned more than four decades, involving close cooperation between the POW/MIA Coordinators in the Prime Minister’s Office, intelligence and operational units within the Mossad and IDF Intelligence Directorate, along with the Shin Bet and the IDF Human Resources Directorate,” the army said.