The Mystery of Ron Arad: An Unforgettable Story

Year: 1988. Location: Maydun, Lebanon.

On the 13th of Tishrei, 1987, navigator Ron Arad and pilot Yishai Aviram embarked on a combat mission over Lebanon. When ammunition exploded near their aircraft, the plane caught fire and went down. The pilot was rescued by helicopter, but Ron couldn't make it to the aircraft and was captured by the Amal organization in Lebanon. For a year, there was contact, and his captors delivered three letters he wrote and one photograph, but the International Red Cross was not permitted to visit him. A year later, contact was lost, and his trail disappeared.

It's believed that Arad was transferred from the senior Amal official Mustafa Dirani's hands either to Iran or another Shiite organization, and his traces vanished completely.

What didn't Israel do to solve the mystery? In Lebanon, 21 Lebanese were kidnapped and detained, including Dirani and senior Hezbollah official Abdel Karim Obeid, in an attempt to use them as bargaining chips for potential negotiations for Arad's release. This attempt was unsuccessful.

Various sources claimed Arad was alive and held in Iran, leading to the establishment of the 'Born for Freedom' association to expedite his release. An Iranian exile even testified that Ron Arad was alive and imprisoned in the Iranian intelligence prison in Isfahan. Another witness claimed to have seen Arad alive in a Syrian jail: "On the day I saw him," he recounted, "they took him to a bathhouse. His physical state was good. If anything bad happened after that, it was a secret act by those holding him to erase the case and avoid complications."

On July 11, 2008, as part of a prisoner exchange deal, Israel received two photos of Ron appearing injured, a diary from the first two years of captivity, and an 80-page Hezbollah report in Arabic describing those who interacted with Arad during his first two years in captivity. In efforts to locate Arad, information was received indicating that during his stay in Nabbi Sheet village in May 1988, he escaped captivity, possibly with assistance from one of his captors, and was killed while attempting to reach Israeli forces in the security zone in southern Lebanon.

According to one theory, in 1988, an airborne division carried out an operation against Hezbollah in the village of Maydun, Lebanon. Ron Arad was hidden there and tried to escape during the operation. He was captured and shot on the spot.