Skip to the story
All StoriesPoliticsConflict & SecurityBusiness & EconomyScience & TechHealthClimateMedia
All stories
Conflict & Security36 outlets ran this4 min read

Israel recovers remains of soldier missing since 1982 Battle of Sultan Yaqub

Yehuda Katz was the last of three Israeli soldiers unaccounted for after the 1982 clash with Syrian forces in Lebanon

AI-assisted coverage comparison, editor-supervised · How this was made

Published Updated
News Themen der Woche KW32 News Bilder des Tages August 12, 2022, Nablus, West Bank, Palestine: Israeli soldiers seen on guard against Palestinian protesters during the demonstration against Israeli s ...

What this story says

  • The remains of Israeli soldier Yehuda Katz, missing since the 1982 Battle of Sultan Yaqub, have been located after 44 years.
  • Katz was the last of three soldiers unaccounted for from the battle, with the others recovered in 2019 and 2023.
  • The Israeli military informed Katz’s family but did not disclose where the remains were found.
  • Russia assisted Israel in 2019, with President Vladimir Putin stating Russian special forces found remains in Syria.

Who covered it

Left 36%(8)Centre 5%(1)Right 59%(13)

Percentages are shares of the 22 outlets carrying a published leaning rating. 14 of the 36 outlets we know ran this story carry no rating and are not counted in them. Coverage measured .

Trust

62/100

Craft

85/100

Hype

70/100

36 sources · methodology

Missing from the left

Only 8 of the 22 outlets with a published leaning rating that ran this story are rated left.

A reader who follows the left would not have seen this. We report the absence rather than explain it: outlets choose what to cover for many reasons, and we have no evidence about which one applies here.

The Israeli military has located the remains of Yehuda Katz, a soldier missing since the 1982 Battle of Sultan Yaqub during the First Lebanon War. Katz, a corporal at the time, disappeared in June 1982 after a tank battle with Syrian forces. The military informed his family of the discovery, though the exact location where the remains were found was not disclosed.

Katz was the last of three Israeli soldiers missing from the battle. The remains of Zachary Baumel were recovered in 2019, and those of Zvi Feldman in 2023. Russia assisted Israel in the 2019 search, with President Vladimir Putin stating that Russian special forces had located remains in Syria. Israel later released two Syrian prisoners, as reported by watson and n-tv.

What the coverage left out

None of the right-rated digests mentioned the 2019 prisoner exchange between Israel and Syria, in which two Syrian prisoners were released in return for the remains of another soldier. This detail was reported by watson and n-tv, the only two outlets whose full articles were printed. No centre-rated outlet ran the story at all.

Tags:#MiddleEastConflict#IsraelDefenceForces#LebanonWar#MissingSoldiers#RussiaIsraelRelations

Coverage settled. We checked this 14 times and stopped on 23 Aug 2026, 17:00. The figures above are what it finished at.

How other outlets pictured it

Which photograph to run is each newsroom’s own choice. The leaning beside a name is that outlet’s published rating, not a claim that the pictures divide along it. Every picture is shown from the outlet’s own server and links to the article it ran in.

Israelische Panzer rollen 1982 durch den südlichen Libanon. (Foto: picture alliance/AP Images)
n-tvRight

How each side covered it

Our own reading of the reporting listed below, written from the outlets’ articles rather than quoted from them. The reasoning is set out on our methodology page.

Left

8 rated outlets

  • The left-rated outlets agree that Israel recovered the remains of Yehuda Katz, a soldier missing since the 1982 Battle of Sultan Yaqub in Lebanon. All eight reports confirm the recovery ends a 44-year search for the last of three soldiers unaccounted for from that battle. Six of the eight are digests; two are full reports.
  • watson and Ynet News led on the recovery as closure for Katz’s family. Both named the two other soldiers previously recovered: Zachary Baumel in 2019 and Zvi Feldman in 2025. watson added that Russia assisted in the 2019 recovery and that Israel released two Syrian prisoners in exchange. Ynet News described the battle’s military and political fallout, quoting no voices but naming commanders who later entered politics.
  • None of the six digests mentioned the Russian role or the prisoner exchange. None named the commanders involved in the battle. The digests did not quote family members, military spokespeople, or political figures. All eight outlets referred to the soldier as either “Yehuda Katz” or “Jehuda Katz” without variation.

Centre

1 rated outlet

We have not written our reading of the centre coverage of this story. The centre-rated outlets that ran it are listed below.

Right

13 rated outlets

  • The five right-rated reports, including n-tv, Die Presse, Arutz Sheva, VINnews, and i24NEWS, framed the recovery as the closure of a painful chapter for the Israeli military and Katz’s family. Arutz Sheva’s headline, "After 44 years: Remains of missing IDF soldier Yehuda Katz located," and VINnews’s "Israel Recovers Remains of Sgt. Yehuda Katz, Missing Since the First Lebanon War," emphasised the duration of the soldier’s disappearance and the emotional significance of the discovery.
  • N-tv and i24NEWS described the Battle of Sultan Yaqub as one of the IDF’s greatest failures during the Lebanon War. The digests from Arutz Sheva and VINnews highlighted the relief for Katz’s family, with Arutz Sheva stating the discovery "ended one of the most painful episodes in the history of the IDF." None of the right-rated digests mentioned the earlier prisoner exchange with Syria or Russia’s role in the search.

Questions about this coverage

How did the left and right cover Israel recovers remains of soldier missing since 1982 Battle of Sultan…?
Of the 22 outlets on this story carrying a published leaning rating, 36% are rated left, 5% are rated centre, 59% are rated right. Those percentages are shares of the rated outlets, not of every outlet that ran it, which was 36. The sections above set out what each side emphasised, in its own terms.
Is Israel recovers remains of soldier missing since 1982 Battle of Sultan… left or right?
Neither side dominates it. Of the 22 rated outlets on this story, 36% are rated left, 5% are rated centre, 59% are rated right, and no side holds the 70% this site would want before calling a field one-sided. A story is not left or right in any case; the outlets that carried it are what carry ratings.
Is the coverage of Israel recovers remains of soldier missing since 1982 Battle of Sultan… biased?
Israel recovers remains of soldier missing since 1982 Battle of Sultan Yaqub is one event reported by 36 outlets, and this page does not rate the story as biased or unbiased. What it publishes is the spread: which outlets ran it, where named rating organisations place each of them on the spectrum, and what each side chose to lead with. A leaning rating describes an outlet's record over time, not this article, and the two should not be run together.
Which side is not reporting Israel recovers remains of soldier missing since 1982 Battle of Sultan…?
When we first saw this story, outlets rated left had barely covered it. Coverage accretes for hours after an event, so that is where to look rather than a verdict — the split above is the current count, and it is the one to read.
Which outlets covered Israel recovers remains of soldier missing since 1982 Battle of Sultan…?
36 that we know of, every one of them listed further up this page with a link to its own report and to what we hold on the publisher. Nothing here is a summary of somebody else's summary: the outlets are named so the original reporting can be read.
Who was Yehuda Katz?
Yehuda Katz was an Israeli soldier who went missing in 1982 during the Battle of Sultan Yaqub in the First Lebanon War. His remains were recently located after 44 years, making him the last of three soldiers unaccounted for from that battle. The Israeli military informed his family of the discovery.
How were the remains of the other missing soldiers recovered?
The remains of Zachary Baumel were recovered in 2019, and those of Zvi Feldman in 2023. Russia assisted Israel in the 2019 search, with President Vladimir Putin stating that Russian special forces found remains in Syria. Israel later released two Syrian prisoners in exchange for the remains, as reported by watson and n-tv.
Did all outlets report Russia’s involvement in the search?
No. The two left-rated reports, watson and Ynet News, mentioned Russia’s assistance in 2019, including Putin’s statement about Russian special forces. None of the five right-rated digests included this detail, and no centre-rated outlet covered the story at all.

Read it at the source

36 outlets, grouped by the leaning a published rating gives them. Every headline links to the original; an underlined outlet name opens our profile of that publisher.

Left

8

Centre

1

Right

13
Show 5 more

Not rated

14
Show 6 more

How did this read?

About the coverage, not about the story. We do not ask whether you agree with what happened — we have no honest use for that answer.

More in Conflict & Security

All Conflict & Security →
Russia Plans to Cut 90% of Power, Heat and Water in Ukraine’s Biggest Cities4 min readUkraine claims interception of Russian plan for winter energy and water strikesRead storyIm Irak wird der US-Truppenabzug als „Tag der Unabhängigkeit“ gefeiert. © Hadi Mizban/AP/dpa3 min readUS troops leave Iraq, raising security concernsRead storyIsrael National News2 min readExplosions heard in Sanaa, YemenRead story

Elsewhere on the site

IMAGO/Kristina Solovyova / IMAGO/SNAPolitics•3 min readPutin says seized Western assets could be returnedPutin warns of 'dangerous moment' and potential use of all weaponsPolitics•3 min readPutin warns of 'dangerous moment' and potential use of all weapons
Israel recovers remains of Yehuda Katz, missing since 1982 | MediaBias News