IDF soldiers carry the coffin of Sgt. First Class Yehuda Katz, whose body was returned from Lebanon this week, 44 years after he went missing in battle, at the Mount of Olives cemetery in Jerusalem, August 21, 2026. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
The funeral for Sgt. First Class Yehuda Katz, who went missing in the First Lebanon War’s battle of Sultan Yacoub in 1982 and whose remains were returned to Israel on Tuesday, is underway at the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives, in Jerusalem.
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 IDF.
Family members and mourners attend the funeral of IDF soldier Yehuda Katz, whose body was returned from Lebanon this week, 44 years after he went missing in battle, at the Mount of Olives cemetery in Jerusalem, August 21, 2026. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
Among those in attendance are Mossad chief Roman Gofman and the government’s former hostage and missing persons pointman Gal Hirsch.
Katz’s brother says the family will be sitting shiva — the seven-day Jewish mourning period — for him “because until now, we had not given up hope of finding him alive.”
“As far as we are concerned, Yehuda was killed this week, not 44 years ago.”
He is also eulogized by the head of Kerem B’Yavne, Rabbi Mordechai Greenberg, who points to Katz as proof that military conscription does not prevent one from living a religious lifestyle.
Family members and mourners attend the funeral of IDF soldier Yehuda Katz, whose body was returned from Lebanon this week, 44 years after he went missing in battle, at the Mount of Olives cemetery in Jerusalem, August 21, 2026. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
“There are those who think that yeshiva students are damaged in the army,” he says in remarks carried by Hebrew media outlets, referring to current discourse around the conscription of ultra-Orthodox men. “With Yehuda, it was the opposite.”
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From the Liveblog of
Friday, August 21, 2026
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