Battle of Sultan Yacoub

Operation Peace for Galilee began on June 6, 1982, when Israel entered a conflict in Lebanon involving Syrian forces and Palestinian terrorist organizations. The operation was also known as the First Lebanon War.[1] The Battle of Sultan Yacoub occurred during the ensuing Israeli and Syrian fighting in the Bekaa Valley.

The battle formed part of Israeli efforts to advance toward the Beirut–Damascus axis while Syria reinforced its positions in Lebanon. A broader account of the campaign says that a tank battalion mistakenly encountered the Syrian deployment at Sultan Yacoub during the night before June 11. By the noon ceasefire, the IDF’s eastern-sector advance toward the Beirut–Damascus axis had made no progress.[6]

At the campaign level, an Israeli plan called for sending a tank division across Mount Jabal Barouk, considered impassable to armor, to reach the Beirut–Damascus Highway, cut Syria off from Lebanon, and get behind opposing defenses. The planned timetable was 48 hours from the operation’s start, but Israeli forces reached the highway three weeks late. This chronology describes the broader campaign rather than the outcome of the Sultan Yacoub battle alone.[7]

Ahead of an expected ceasefire with Syria, Israeli forces were ordered to seize a strategic junction near Sultan Yacoub known as the Tublano Triangle. The mission was assigned to a divisional force comprising three armored brigades and an infantry brigade, while a reserve tank battalion was tasked with breaking through to the objective. The sector was commanded by Northern Command corps commander Avigdor “Yanush” Ben-Gal; Ehud Barak was his deputy, and Amram Mitzna was corps chief of staff.[2]

The reserve force included soldiers from the 362nd Armored Battalion, whose ranks consisted largely of Hesder yeshiva students. Yehuda Katz and other reservists were called up from Kerem B’Yavneh Yeshiva. Katz reportedly said, “We go to war from the beit midrash,” as he boarded the bus to his unit. Clothes and personal belongings he left at the yeshiva remained packed in a dormitory cupboard during the decades in which his fate was unknown.[8]

During the night of June 10–11, the battalion advanced toward the junction and village without knowing that Syrian units were positioned nearby. Later research found that the IDF had possessed an aerial photograph showing the Syrian positions, but the information had not reached the troops in the field.[2][9] Other reporting describes an erroneous intelligence picture that underestimated the size and disposition of the Syrian deployment.

Syrian forces opened heavy fire from commanding terrain as the Israeli force entered the area. Reported weapons included antitank missiles, mortars, and artillery. Damaged tanks blocked the route, Syrian commandos approached at close range, and darkness, fire from multiple directions, severed communications, and the division of the force complicated coordination and withdrawal.[10][4] Accounts cited by Ynet also report that friendly fire hit two Israeli tanks.[2]

After about eight hours, the battalion withdrew under heavy Israeli artillery cover. Eight Israeli tanks were left behind and captured by Syrian forces.[2][3] Once the surviving force reached safety, six soldiers were initially listed as missing or left behind, although their eventual outcomes differed.

The fighting occurred alongside wider armored combat on June 11. Syrian units from Division 3 engaged Ben-Gal’s forces with T-72 tanks against Israeli Merkavas; the source reports numerous Syrian losses without quantifying them. Artillery and air units supported Israeli troops, and both the IDF and Syrian forces ceased fire at noon.[6]

Later accounts commonly report 20 Israeli soldiers killed, dozens wounded, and six initially missing or left behind.[2] A detailed 2026 account gives approximately 40 wounded.[4] An older 2004 report instead claimed about 30 dead, dozens wounded, and approximately 20 hours of fighting.[5] The differing figures should be presented as competing reports rather than combined into a single total.

The six soldiers initially unaccounted for had different outcomes. Zohar Lifshitz was killed, buried in Syria, and later returned to Israel. Arik Lieberman was captured by Syrian forces and released two years later. Hezi Shai was captured by the terrorist organization led by Ahmed Jibril and released in the 1985 Jibril prisoner exchange. Zachary Baumel, Zvi Feldman, and Yehuda Katz remained missing for decades.[2][3]

Published sources have not used the same categories consistently. One Jewish Virtual Library overview identifies Baumel, Feldman, and Katz as the three soldiers who could not be found after the battle, while an older individual profile says five soldiers went missing and that two were subsequently returned.[11][12] Neither description should be treated as interchangeable with the six soldiers initially reported missing or left behind.

Katz was traveling in a tank commanded by Zohar Lifshitz when a shell struck its turret. The driver attempted to check Katz’s condition and resuscitate him before abandoning the vehicle when confronted by a Syrian armored vehicle. The tank later burned and was removed as captured equipment, placing Katz’s disappearance on a different evidentiary track from that of Baumel and Feldman.[4]

The families campaigned for information and resisted definitive conclusions about the soldiers’ deaths while their remains were missing.[11] Katz’s family pursued leads and met government leaders, and his parents documented their efforts in a book published in 1994. They died without learning his fate. Kerem B’Yavneh Yeshiva also preserved the belongings Katz had left behind when he was called to war.[8]

Hezi Shai returned to Israel on May 20, 1985, in the Jibril Deal, together with Yosef Grof and Nissim Salem, in exchange for 1,150 prisoners. The Jewish Virtual Library page reporting the exchange incorrectly gives Shai’s capture date as November 6, 1982, despite identifying Sultan Yacoub as the battle in which he was captured.[13]

The search for the three soldiers who remained missing ended in stages. Russia transferred Zachary Baumel’s remains to Israel in April 2019 after they were found in the Yarmouk refugee camp near Damascus.[14] Zvi Feldman’s remains were recovered in 2025, and Yehuda Katz’s remains were located and brought to Israel in August 2026 through an operation involving Military Intelligence and the Mossad.[4] Katz was buried on Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives, completing the return of the three soldiers 44 years after the battle.[15]

Other claims concerning remains in Syria have remained unconfirmed. A Jerusalem Center article relayed Syrian opposition reporting that six Israeli soldiers’ remains, including Baumel’s, had been buried in numbered and unnamed graves in Yarmouk. The article explicitly cautioned that the reports might have been intended to embarrass the Syrian government and did not treat them as established findings.[16]

The battle is remembered for the Israeli losses, the captured tanks, and the decades-long search for the missing soldiers. The recovery of Baumel, Feldman, and Katz between 2019 and 2026 provided a definitive outcome after prolonged uncertainty.[14][4] The participation of reservists from a Hesder battalion also connected the battle in Israeli public memory to the mobilization of yeshiva students for military service.[8]

The conduct of the battle has remained the subject of military, academic, and public debate. Later research established that an aerial photograph showing Syrian positions existed but did not reach the soldiers in the field. Reporting has also examined the mistaken intelligence picture, communications failures, blocked routes, poor coordination, and command responsibility.[2][9] A Mako retrospective included Sultan Yacoub among major IDF operational failures and emphasized the force’s topographical disadvantage and coordination problems.[10]

Reconstruction is complicated by differences among published accounts. Recent Ynet reporting describes about eight hours of fighting, 20 Israeli soldiers killed, and six initially missing, while a 2004 Ynet account reported about 20 hours, approximately 30 killed, and dozens wounded.[2][5] The most stable elements across the accounts are the unexpected encounter with Syrian positions, the difficult withdrawal under artillery cover, the capture of Israeli tanks, and the prolonged uncertainty over the missing soldiers.

Published accounts disagree on casualty totals and duration. Later reports commonly give 20 Israeli dead and about eight hours of fighting, whereas a 2004 report gives approximately 30 dead and 20 hours.[2][5] Sources also classify the six soldiers left behind differently: some call all six missing, while fuller accounts distinguish one soldier killed, two captured, and three whose fates remained unknown for decades.[2][4]

The village name appears as Sultan Yacoub, Sultan Yakub, Sultan Yaakub, and Sultan Yaqub in English-language sources.[2][11] The Jewish Virtual Library prisoner-exchange page identifies Hezi Shai as having been captured in the battle but supplies a November 1982 date inconsistent with the battle’s June chronology.[13] An older profile also continued to describe Katz and the other soldiers as missing after newer reporting documented the return of their remains.[12][15]

Reports that Baumel, Feldman, and Katz were seen alive and paraded through Damascus were presented as eyewitness claims rather than verified findings.[11] Claims about additional Israeli remains in Yarmouk likewise originated in Syrian opposition reporting and were expressly treated with caution by the source that relayed them.[16]