Israel kills dozens in Lebanon after failed mission to find pilot’s remains

An Israeli operation in eastern Lebanon to locate the remains of a famous IDF pilot ended in failure overnight, when the commandos were caught in a gunfight with Hezbollah and local residents, leading Israeli jets to pummel the area with airstrikes that killed dozens of people.The fighting left three Lebanese soldiers and 41 residents of the Bekaa Valley dead, according to the Lebanese Army and ministry of health. No injuries were reported among the Israeli soldiers.Two Israeli helicopters landed outside the towns of Nabi Chit and Khraibeh along the Syrian-Lebanese border in the eastern Bekaa Valley at 10pm on Friday night, dropping off Israeli soldiers, according to the Lebanese Army. The Israeli soldiers headed to a cemetery in Nabi Chit, and began to dig up a grave, where they suspected the remains of Ron Arad, an Israeli pilot who went missing in Lebanon in 1986, were held.The Lebanese Army detected the incursion and launched flares over the Israeli helicopters, a Lebanese Army statement said, leading to a gun battle between Israeli forces, local residents and Hezbollah fighters.A grave dug up by Israeli forces searching for Israeli pilot Ron Arad, who was captured after his fighter jet crashed over south Lebanon in 1986. Photograph: Ali Salem/APPro-Iran group Hezbollah claimed it also observed the Israeli helicopters touching down, and that its fighters ambushed the soldiers outside the cemetery, supported by the residents of the area. The Israeli military launched at least 40 airstrikes on the town while its soldiers on the ground fought local residents and Hezbollah, with fighting lasting until 3am, according to the Lebanese Army.Videos of the incident showed gunfire, with a constant stream of tracer bullets flying through the air, and residents calling for people from other villages to come and help repel the Israelis. Residents of the eastern Bekaa are heavily armed and many support Hezbollah.Several buildings in the town of Nabi Chit were levelled, a main road was rendered inaccessible and a huge crater was left by the Israeli airstrikes.Arad was an Israeli pilot whose aircraft was damaged by a faulty bomb while he was flying over southern Lebanon on a mission to attack PLO targets. He was captured by the Amal Movement, a Shia militia, and handed over to Hezbollah. No proof of life from his captors has been given since the late 1980s and an Israeli government commission concluded in 2004 that he had died in the mid-1990s.The Israeli government has continued to try to locate his remains, with then-prime minister Naftali Bennett saying in 2021 that Israeli intelligence had abducted an Iranian general from Syria as part of its search for Arad.One former officer previously involved in the search for Arad’s remains said the operation would have been based on fresh intelligence. “They would have got a new lead and decided to act on it,” the officer said. “That there’s a major war going on makes no difference. There is an obligation to put an end to this tragedy,” they added.In December, retired Lebanese general security officer Ahmed Shukr was abducted from the town of Nabi Chit after being lured by unknown individuals into the rural Bekaa Valley for what was supposed to be a viewing of a property. Lebanese officials suspected that he had been captured by Israeli intelligence and taken to Israel for questioning, as his brother Hassan was suspected by Israeli intelligence of being involved in the capture of Arad.A picture of the headstone of the grave dug up by the Israelis in Nabi Chit on Friday night showed that it belonged to someone named Hussein Shukr.Tami Arad, Arad’s widow, posted a statement on social media, thanking those involved in the operation, but said the family did not want Israeli military lives to be risked in the hunt for his remains. “For 40 years we have lived with the fact that Ron is missing, we want to know what happened to Ron, but not at any cost. We prefer to live with the painful possibility that Ron’s bones lie in Lebanon rather than wake up in the morning with the news that an IDF soldier was injured, or God forbid, killed, in the operation to bring back his bones, if indeed they are his bones,” she said.