View source for Israeli MIAs

{{Short description|Members of the Israel Defense Forces who are missing in action}}
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{{expand Hebrew|date=February 2024|topic=mil}}
[[File:Garden of the Missing in Action IMG 1290.JPG|thumb|Empty graves in the Garden of the Missing in Action]]
<!-- [[WP:NFCC]] violation: [[File:Ron Arad.jpg|150px|thumb|right|Ron Arad in 1987, an Israel MIA captured by Amal militants, believed to have died in custody]] -->

'''Israeli MIA''' are members of the [[Israel Defense Forces]] who are [[missing in action]]. Despite efforts to locate and repatriate them, their whereabouts remain unknown. Every year, a state ceremony is held at [[Mount Herzl]], Israel's military cemetery in Jerusalem.<ref>{{cite web | last=Simmons | first=Rabbi Shraga | title=Missing in Action | website=aishcom | date=October 16, 1986 | url=http://www.aish.com/h/imd/48899777.html | access-date=April 2, 2018}}</ref>

==IDF prisoners of war==
[[File:Garden of the Missing in Action IMG 1299.JPG|thumb|Commemorative wall in the  Garden of the Missing in Action]]
In the [[Yom Kippur War]] 301 Israelis were captured by [[Syria]] and [[Egypt]], 232 of whom by the Egyptians, 65 by the Syrians and 4 by the Lebanese. The majority of them were captured in the first stage of that war. Some Israeli soldiers reported after their release about the difficult conditions they faced: they were severely beaten by their captors, sometimes making them unconscious, while many  reported that they were being investigated under [[torture]].<ref>{{cite web|author=|date=11 October 2012|url=http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/MFA-Archive/2004/Pages/Israeli%20MIAs.aspx|title= Israel's MIAs|work=[[Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs]]| accessdate=August 20, 2013}}</ref>

===Known Israeli MIAs===
* Members of the 362th battalion declared missing after the [[Battle of Sultan Yacoub]] in [[Lebanon]] on June 12, 1982: [[Zechariah Baumel]] (body recovered in 2019),<ref>[https://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/After-37-years-the-body-of-SgtZachary-Baumel-has-returned-to-Israel-585650 AFTER 37 YEARS, THE BODY OF SGT. ZACHARY BAUMEL HAS RETURNED TO ISRAEL], JPost, 3 April 2019</ref> Tzvi Feldman, and Yehuda Katz.<ref name="missing IDF">{{cite web|last  = Kaplan|first= Danny|title = Commemorating a Suspended Death: Missing Soldiers and National Solidarity in Israel|url = http://www.dannykaplan.org/articles/SuspendedDeathCirculatePrePublication.pdf|work= American Ethnologist Volume 35, Number 3 (August 2008)|accessdate = 18 October 2011 |issn = 0094-0496|url-status = dead|archiveurl  = https://web.archive.org/web/20120317004813/http://www.dannykaplan.org/articles/SuspendedDeathCirculatePrePublication.pdf|archivedate = 17 March 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | last=Fischer | first=Elli | title=Yehuda, Tzvi, and Zachary: MIA for 30 Years | website=The Times of Israel | date=August 30, 2017 | url=http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/yehuda-tzvi-and-zachary-missing-for-30-years-tonight/ | access-date=April 2, 2018}}</ref>
* [[Ron Arad (pilot)|Ron Arad]], an IDF [[F-4 Phantom II]] navigator, was lost over [[Lebanon]] on October 16, 1986.<ref name="missing IDF"/>
* [[Guy Hever]] disappeared on duty in the [[Golan Heights]] on August 17, 1997.<ref name="missing IDF"/>

==Procedure and guidelines==
According to Reuben Yardor, a military intelligence leader of the [[Yom Kippur War]], the automatic assumption they made was that all that's known to their captured soldiers is also known to the captors.<ref>{{cite web|author=Dalia Gavriely|date=|url=http://afs.sagepub.com/content/33/1/94|title= Israel's Cultural Code of Captivity and the Personal Stories of Yom Kippur War Ex-POWs|work=[[Sage Journals]]| accessdate=August 20, 2013}}</ref>

Several publicized stories of Israeli prisoners of war were:<ref>{{cite web|author=|date=November 8, 1999|url=http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-106publ89/pdf/PLAW-106publ89.pdf|title=Public Law- An Act|website=| accessdate=August 20, 2013}}</ref>

* Corporal [[Uri Ilan]], undercover soldier in the [[Golani Brigade]] who committed suicide in a Syrian prison in 1955, leaving a note in which he wrote, "I did not betray."
* Lieutenant Colonel Avi Nir, [[fighter pilot]] shot down and captured during the Yom Kippur War, died in captivity without revealing secrets to his captors. He was posthumously awarded the [[Medal of Courage]], for "[He] was tortured to death by investigators but revealed no information. Doing so demonstrates loyalty and supreme sacrifice."<ref>(The source is in Hebrew)</ref>
* Lieutenant Amos Levinberg, [[intelligence officer]] taken captive by the Syrians in the beginning the Yom Kippur War, and gave his captors a lot of information. He was eventually released in a prisoner exchange.<ref>{{cite web | last=Bergman | first=Ronen | title=The Spies Inside Damascus | website=Foreign Policy | date=September 20, 2013 | url=https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/09/20/the-spies-inside-damascus/ | access-date=April 2, 2018}}</ref>

==See also==
* [[Gilad Shalit]]
* [[Disappearance of Ron Arad]]
* [[Majdi Halabi]]
* [[List of Israeli prisoner exchanges]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==
* {{cite journal | last=Kaplan| first=Danny| title=Commemorating a suspended death: Missing soldiers and national solidarity in Israel | journal=American Ethnologist | publisher=Wiley-Blackwell | volume=35 | issue=3 | date=July 31, 2008 | issn=0094-0496 | doi=10.1111/j.1548-1425.2008.00043.x | pages=413–427}}
* [https://www.congress.gov/106/plaws/publ89/PLAW-106publ89.pdf Public Law 106–89 106th Congress], US Congress, November 8, 1999
*{{cite book|author=Alexander Bligh|title=Israeli Prisoner of War Policies: From the 1949 Armistice to the 2006 Kidnappings|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DW81DgAAQBAJ|date=16 March 2017|publisher=Lexington Books|isbn=978-0-7391-9472-0}}

==External links==
* [http://www.eitan.aka.idf.il/894-en/eitan.aspx EITAN - Missing in Action Accounting Unit] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180403112404/http://www.eitan.aka.idf.il/894-en/eitan.aspx |date=2018-04-03 }} of the IDF
* [http://www.mia.org.il/ ICMIS Home Page: The International Coalition for Missing Israeli Soldiers]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Israeli Mias}}
[[Category:Arab–Israeli conflict]]
[[Category:Military personnel missing in action]]
[[Category:Israeli military personnel]]