Lieutenant Colonel Ron Arad, an Israel Air Force navigator, was captured on Oct. 16, 1986, after a technical problem forced him and an IAF pilot to parachute from their Phantom jet while flying over southern Lebanon. While the pilot was rescued in a daring Israeli helicopter raid, Arad was captured by members of the Islamic fundamentalist AMAL militia and brought to Beirut.
Some reports suggested that Arad was handed over to the Iranians in 1989 and was being held somewhere in the country. Other reports say he is still being held in Lebanon.
In an effort to free Arad or get information about his fate, Israel kidnapped some senior officials from Lebanese terror groups to use as bargaining chips, but later freed them in a separate prisoner exchange with Hizbullah.
Arad and his wife Tami have a daughter, Yuval. Before his capture, he was studying chemical engineering at The Technion in Haifa.
In October 2003, Yedioth Ahronoth reported that three former Iranian diplomats and intelligence officials, now living in Europe, said that Arad was alive and being held in a prison near Tehran.
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