I10: Israeli M.I.A.s

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Ron Arad

On October 16, 1986, a malfunction in an Israeli Phantom jet caused it to crash during an attack on terrorist bases near Sidon in Lebanon. The plane's pilot was rescued by helicopter, but Arad, the navigator, was captured by several dozen members of the Amal terror group. He was brought by the group to Beirut, where Amal leader Nabih Berri offered to return him in a prisoner exchange. The person who was in charge of Arad during his period in Beirut was Mustafa Dirani, head of Amal's security apparatus, who was known to have close ties with Iran.

At the beginning of 1988, Dirani left Amal and took Arad with him. Since then there has been no word of his fate. Iran denies it is holding him or that it has any information about him.

Ron Arad was born in Israel on May 5th, 1958. He has two brothers and is married. Ron and his wife Tami have a daughter, Yuval who is twelve years old. Ron last saw her when she was one and a half. His family have spent the last ten years campaigning tirelessly for his release.

Letter from a friend

An extract from a letter to Ron Arad from "Y", the pilot that flew with him, written ten years after that fateful flight.

When will we learn what is happening to you? When will we know whom to believe?

In Israel, every question has at least two answers, from the left and from the right, except you, you are in the middle, the consensus. We want you, alive, sane and with us. Events here are so serious and happen with such frequency, and every piece of news drops off the agenda in a matter of days. But among us, not a conversation is held in which you are not mentioned. With me in particular everything is alive, fresh and open and will not heal until we know....

Maybe it seems so banal, but knowing you, you're supposed to appear from somewhere with your shy smile, and we all hug you, weeping and laughing, and then you'll get to know your family again, more mature and stronger and wonderful, and you'll be so proud of them. And then we'll sit and talk for hours and days about things that happened, and about friends, and who got what job, and places and politics, and gossip and sports and intifadah and Petra and all the rest of the thunder and lightning.

After that together, the two of us will complete the puzzle, and then we'll go out and fly (in the Phantom, just this once, Tammy), a joyflight, relaxed with no targets to study, without bombs and missiles, without supplies of ammunition. And, of course the sky will be blue and deep, like it was then, and we'll fly north and south. I want to show you the new roads and interchanges and settlements.

And finally, finally, we'll go back to the valley of Jezr'eel and we'll land...

And that's my greatest wish, Ron, to land with you".

Yosef Fink & Rachamim Alsheich

At noon on February 17, 1986, Hizbullah terrorists opened fire on an IDF patrol in the security zone between Northern Israel and Lebanon. Two IDF soldiers, sitting in the last car of the convoy, were wounded and captured in the ambush.

That same day, Islamic Resistance Movement released an announcement on Lebanese TV saying that IDF soldiers had been captured in southern Lebanon. The following day, Radio Beirut announced that the Israeli prisoners had been severely wounded and were receiving medical treatment. Three days later the Hizbullah weekly, Al-Ahad appearing in Beirut, published a picture purportedly of the two Israeli prisoners in hospital. Their faces were bandaged and they could not be identified. In various interviews, Hizbullah terrorist leaders in Beirut refused to discuss the place of detention and physical state of the captured soldiers. Neither did they issue demands for their release. It later transpired that Hizbullah had executed them. In 1991, Chief IDF chaplain Maj.-Gen. Gad Navon declared Sergeants Yosef Fink and Rachamim Alsheich to be deceased after proof of their death was received.

Alsheich, the youngest of seven was raised in Rosh Ha'ayin. On completing his schooling, he decided to join the IDF in the hesder program combining yeshiva studies and military service. Fink's parents immigrated to Israel from England when he was two years old and settled in Ra'anana. He too was in the hesder programme and attended the same yeshiva as Rachamim. The oldest of four children, he was a member of the Givati Brigade.

Living with grief

Soon after the return of his body, at the unveiling of Yossi Fink's gravestone, Danny Eisen, the president of the International Coalition for Missing Israeli Soldiers, was asked to speak. Here is part of what he said:

... I have seen first hand how the shadow of a missing child casts its pall over every aspect of the life of those he left behind. For these families, every day is Rosh Hashanah and every day is Yom Kippur. Last February, this point was most painfully apparent in a picture that appeared in Yediot (an Israeli newspaper) The paper displayed a picture of a young bride, dressed like all other brides - in a white bridal gown and veil, but with one notable addition. This bride was wearing her brother's dogtag around her neck. That bride was Osnat Fink, Yossi's sister...

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