New Investigation Details Decades-Long Hunt for Missing Israeli Airman Ron Arad

A new investigation by The New York Times, published on Sunday, details decades of covert operations in which Israeli agents kidnapped and interrogated senior Iranian military figures in a bid to uncover the fate of missing air force navigator Ron Arad. The report suggests that Israel’s focus on the Islamic Republic was a strategic error, citing testimony from dozens of Iranian, Israeli, and American officials.

Arad has been missing since 1986, when he bailed out of his aircraft during an operation in southern Lebanon. Israel initially believed he was captured by the Shiite Amal movement and subsequently handed over to Iran. Although several signs of life were received in the early years of his disappearance, including photographs and letters, the last communication from Arad arrived on May 5, 1988.

The search intensified in the 1990s. In 1992, Mossad officer Israel Perlov sought out doctors who may have treated Arad. He established contact with an Iranian doctor who claimed to have treated the airman in both Lebanon and Iran. However, the doctor’s polygraph results were inconclusive, and he vanished after Israel offered him a suitcase of money for information that would lead to Arad’s rescue.

In 1994, Israeli commandos abducted Mustafa Dirani, a senior member of the Amal militia, from deep inside Lebanon. During interrogations, which he said involved torture, Dirani stated that Arad was taken to Nabi Chit in the Beqaa Valley and placed under the guard of a trusted family. He claimed the guards left to fight nearby Israeli soldiers and returned to find Arad gone. Dirani also alleged that an Iranian official informed him that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had spirited Arad away to Iran.

This claim shifted public and political blame toward Tehran, even as some Israeli officials questioned why Iran was not seeking a trade for the airman. In 1999, Pope John Paul II delivered a letter from Arad’s wife to Iranian President Mohamad Khatami, asking for information. By 2004, an IDF commission concluded that Arad had died in the 1990s due to a lack of medical treatment and was buried in the Beqaa Valley.

Despite these findings, the search continued. In 2006, Mossad agents kidnapped IRGC-Quds Force General Alireza Asgari from Istanbul. According to three former US officials, agents questioned him for weeks aboard a boat before dumping his body into the Black Sea when no evidence emerged regarding Arad. Israel denied involvement in the high-profile disappearance at the time.

A joint report by Mossad and the IDF Military Intelligence in 2016 stated that Arad was likely dead by 1988. Nevertheless, in 2021, Arabic-language media reported that Mossad agents kidnapped IRGC General Abdullah Saberi while he was jogging in Damascus. He was reportedly interrogated intensely and later released in Johannesburg, South Africa, with a contact number for the Iranian embassy.

In March of this year, the IDF launched a commando raid deep into Lebanon to locate Arad’s remains. The operation was accompanied by heavy airstrikes that killed at least 41 people in the Nabi Chit area, according to local officials. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that while the operation did not yield the desired results, Israel’s commitment to resolving the issue of its missing persons remains absolute.

Arad’s widow later issued a statement expressing the family’s wish that IDF soldiers’ lives not be risked in the search for his remains. The investigation highlights a long and often controversial campaign that has spanned nearly four decades, involving multiple agencies and international figures in the effort to solve one of Israel’s most persistent intelligence mysteries.