The families of three Israeli MIAs have called on the government to intensify efforts to obtain information about their sons.
The request came after an Israeli Arab journalist from Nazareth said that during a visit to Syria two years ago, he was taken to a Palestinian cemetery near Damascus where he saw the graves of three Israeli soldiers who were reported missing in the 1982 war in Lebanon.
The journalist reportedly said there were ten graves of Jews or Israelis in the cemetery.
Among those buried there, the journalist maintained, were MIAs Zechariah Baumel, Yehuda Katz and Zvi Feldman.
The three soldiers were declared missing after they were taken prisoner during the 1982 Operation Peace for Galilee.
Their families have since launched an international effort to obtain information regarding their whereabouts.
Palestinian security sources reportedly said last month that they had located three Palestinians in Jordan who claimed to have buried the three bodies in the cemetery under Palestinian names and without the knowledge of Syrian authorities.
In light of that report, the families of the MIAs were summoned to meet Aug. 1 with the IDF manpower head, Maj. Gen. Gideon Sheffer, at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv.
But they emerged from the meeting saying that no new information had been disclosed or confirmed.
In July, the bodies of Israeli MIAs Yosef Fink and Rachamim Alsheikh, killed in Lebanon in 1986, were returned to Israel as part of a prisoner and body exchange with Hezbollah that had been mediated by Germany.
Later last month, Israeli search teams ripped up part of a major road near Palmahim, located along the Israeli coast, to find what they believed were the remains of Ilan Sa’adon, an Israeli soldier kidnapped and murdered by Hamas terrorists in 1989.
The teams made the find as the result of information provided by Palestinian security officials.
Searches continue at that site, where the remains of a skeleton and some articles of clothing have been found, in an effort to positively identify the remains as Sa’adon’s.
Last week, search teams found remains of a skull that was sent to a forensics lab for further testing.
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