Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, visiting Moscow on a state visit, formally receives an IDF Magach-3 tank captured by Syria in the 1982 Lebanon War.
The tank was taken during the June 11, 1982, battle of Sultan Yacoub, considered one of Israel’s worst failures in the war, in which 30 IDF soldiers were killed and another three, who were assigned to the captured tank, went missing.
Netanyahu thanks Russian President Vladimir Putin Wednesday for the “warm humanitarian gesture” and vows Israel will not relent until it finds its lost soldiers: Zvi Feldman, Yehuda Katz and Zachary Baumel.
IDF tank captured by Syrian forces in 1982, returned by Russia on June 8, 2016. (Raphael Ahren/Times of Israel)
Syria handed the tank over to Russia so it Russia could use it to study Israeli tank construction. It has been housed at a museum some 70 kilometers from Moscow ever since.
Missing-in-action Israel Defense Forces soldiers Zachary Baumel, Zvi Feldman and Yehuda Katz. (The International Coalition for Missing Israeli Soldiers)
The tank is now being transferred to Israel’s Armored Corps museum at Latrun.
— Raphael Ahren and Times of Israel staff
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From the Liveblog of
Wednesday, June 8, 2016
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