By Yona Schnitzer/TPS
Syrian rebel factions conducted searches in the Yarmouk Refugee Camp near Damascus in an attempt to locate the remains of three Israeli soldiers missing since the battle of Sultan Yacoub in the 1982 Lebanon War, the Secretary General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine Talal Naji said in a television interview Saturday.
Naji, who resides in Syria, made the assertion during an interview to the Beirut based Al Mayadeen TV station. According to Naji, the search was requested by Israel, and stands as evidence to cooperation between Israel and certain rebel forces in Syria.
The battle took place on June 10th, 1982 in the Bekaa Valley in Southern Lebanon, when two IDF battalions fought their way through Syrian infantry forces, only to become cut off and surrounded. Under heavy Israeli artillery fire, the stranded battalions managed to escape. However, 20 Israeli soldiers died in the battle, two were taken captive and later traded in prisoner swaps, eight tanks were lost, and an additional three Israeli soldiers were missing in action – Zachary Baumel, Yehuda Katz and Zvi Feldman.
Time Magazine reporter Dean Brelis testified to having seen the three soldiers paraded alive through the streets of Damascus atop their captured tank, however, they were never returned to Israel, and information of their whereabouts remained unknown. According to certain Lebanese and Syrian accounts, the soldiers were actually killed in the battle and were not taken alive.
According to Naji, the soldiers were killed in the battle and their remains taken to the Yarmouk area to be buried.