After 32 years, IAF posts previously unseen photos of missing airman Ron Arad

‘The yearning has no limit,’ Air Force writes on anniversary of botched operation in Lebanon, with 2 images from Arad’s military service

By ToI Staff 16 October 2018, 3:02 pm

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Air Force navigator Ron Arad, who went missing in 1986, in his flight suit. (Israeli Air Force)

The Israeli Air Force on Tuesday revealed two previously unpublished photos of navigator Ron Arad during his military service, exactly 32 years after he disappeared when he ejected from his stricken plane over Lebanon.

“The yearning has no limit,” the Air Force wrote in a Facebook post alongside the undated photos.

One of them shows Arad in his flight suit, while the other depicts him in civilian attire alongside his friends.

The navigator disappeared on October 16, 1986, after he and pilot Yishai Aviram bailed out of their plane over southern Lebanon.

Aviram was rescued shortly afterward, but Arad was never found. Israel believes he was captured by the Shiite Amal movement before being handed over to Iran, and moved from Lebanon to Iran and then back again.

Air Force navigator Ron Arad, who went missing in 1986, with friends. (Israeli Air Force)

Several signs of life were received in the first two years of his incarceration, including photos and letters, but the last was sent on May 5, 1988.

It is unknown what happened to him next.

In 2016, a joint report by the Mossad spy agency and the Israel Defense Forces’s Directorate of Military Intelligence concluded that Arad likely died by 1988, earlier than was previously believed.

Much of the information remains under wraps as all branches of Israel’s security continue to try to solve the puzzle of Arad’s fate.

A 2004 IDF commission determined that Arad had died in the 1990s after being denied medical treatment for a serious illness, and was buried in the Beqaa Valley.

In 2006, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said the group believed Arad was dead and his burial site unknown; in 2008, German negotiator Gerhard Konrad told Israel that Hezbollah said Arad died during a 1988 escape attempt.

Nevertheless, Israel’s leadership said in 2009 that it was operating under the assumption that Arad was alive. There have been many public campaigns in Israel over the past 30 years supporting Arad and demanding his release, but few still believe that the airman, who would have celebrated his 60th birthday last May, is among the living.