Israel Kidnapped Iranian Generals in Secret Lebanon Operation Over Missing Pilot Ron Arad

A secret investigation by Iran and Hezbollah concluded that missing Israeli pilot Ron Arad died in 1988 in the Lebanese village of Nabi Sheet and was likely buried in the same area, according to a New York Times report. The document was prepared after Israel agreed in 2004 to release a Lebanese prisoner in exchange for genetic evidence regarding Arad's fate. Hezbollah's then-Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah enlisted Tehran's help, which dispatched Revolutionary Guard commander Abdullah Saberi to coordinate search efforts. The findings were considered significant enough that former Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani sent one of his sons to Germany to personally deliver them. Simultaneously, Israeli agents abducted two Iranian generals, killing one, believing Tehran was responsible for Arad's fate. General Ali Reza Askari was kidnapped two decades ago, interrogated, and killed without possessing information. In September 2021, agents disguised as furniture movers abducted Saberi himself in Damascus and brought him to Israel for interrogation.

Israeli intelligence agencies repeatedly gave significant credibility to the hypothesis that Iran held Arad. This belief was reinforced in 1992 by an Iranian doctor who claimed to have treated him in Tehran and Lebanon, despite inconclusive lie detector tests. In 1994, Israeli commandos conducted Operation "Poison Sting," abducting Mustafa Dirani from Lebanon. During interrogation, Dirani claimed his men had left the house where Arad was held one night, and upon their return, Arad had vanished. His interrogator, Doron Zahavi, did not believe him, later stating that "the only thing that worked was force."

German mediator Gerhard Konraad testified that Hezbollah and the Iranians "really tried with all their might to find the body." Former Iranian Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi told the newspaper that "Israel was obsessed with Iran's involvement." He recounted that Pope John Paul II himself delivered a letter from Arad's wife to President Mohammad Khatami in 1999. Raz Tzemach, a former IDF intelligence analyst who co-authored a key 2005 report accusing Tehran, admitted in an interview that the assessment was likely wrong and stemmed from "a natural tendency to blame everything on the regime in Tehran."