The funeral for Sgt. First Class Yehuda Katz was held Friday in Jerusalem, 44 years after he went missing in the First Lebanon War’s battle of Sultan Yacoub.

Hundreds of people lined the streets to pay their last respects as the funeral procession set off from the Kerem B’Yavne yeshiva in southern Israel, where Katz studied before enlisting in the Israel Defense Forces.

His remains were returned to Israel on Tuesday from Lebanon, where he went missing during the 1982 battle in Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley along with Sgt. First Class Zachary Baumel and Sgt. First Class Zvi Feldman. The fighting claimed the lives of 21 Israeli servicemen and injured more than 30.

Baumel’s remains were recovered with Russian assistance and returned to Israel in 2019, while Feldman’s remains were recovered by Mossad agents in May 2025. The IDF said Katz’s bones were recovered in a special operation led by the Military Intelligence Directorate in coordination with the Mossad spy agency.

Among those attending Katz’s funeral at the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives were Mossad chief Roman Gofman and the government’s former hostage and missing persons pointman Gal Hirsch.

Katz’s brother Avi said the family would be sitting shiva — the seven-day Jewish mourning period — for him “because until now, we had not given up........

© The Times of Israel