IDF Chief of Staff Mofaz has appointed a new committee to review the available information regarding the fate of missing Israel Air Force navigator Ron Arad. Retired judge Eliyahu Vinograd was appointed to head the committee, which will also include a senior police investigator and a representative from the intelligence community.
Lt.-Col. Arad’s Phantom jet was shot down on October 16, 1986, in Lebanon and he was taken captive by the Amal militia. He has since been held by other Iranian-backed terrorist organizations, but no solid information on his whereabouts or condition is known. May 5th was Ron Arad’s 44th birthday, his sixteenth in captivity.
The Arad family did not comment on the establishment of the committee. The IDF spokesman’s office stressed today that the army, the security services and the state of Israel are doing all in their power to bring Ron Arad home.
There are currently four other MIAs/POWs in Lebanon: St.-Sgt. Zechariah Baumel, St.-Sgt. Tzvi Feldman and St.-Sgt. Yehuda Katz have been missing since the June 11, 1984 battle at Sultan Yaqub. In addition, the bodies of Sgt. Adi Avitan, St.-Sgt. Binyamin Avraham and St.-Sgt. Omer Suaed, who were declared dead by the IDF Chief Rabbinate about a year after their abduction October of 2000 by Hizbullah terrorists, have still not been returned to Israel.
Lt.-Col. Arad’s Phantom jet was shot down on October 16, 1986, in Lebanon and he was taken captive by the Amal militia. He has since been held by other Iranian-backed terrorist organizations, but no solid information on his whereabouts or condition is known. May 5th was Ron Arad’s 44th birthday, his sixteenth in captivity.
The Arad family did not comment on the establishment of the committee. The IDF spokesman’s office stressed today that the army, the security services and the state of Israel are doing all in their power to bring Ron Arad home.
There are currently four other MIAs/POWs in Lebanon: St.-Sgt. Zechariah Baumel, St.-Sgt. Tzvi Feldman and St.-Sgt. Yehuda Katz have been missing since the June 11, 1984 battle at Sultan Yaqub. In addition, the bodies of Sgt. Adi Avitan, St.-Sgt. Binyamin Avraham and St.-Sgt. Omer Suaed, who were declared dead by the IDF Chief Rabbinate about a year after their abduction October of 2000 by Hizbullah terrorists, have still not been returned to Israel.