Late on Friday, four Israeli helicopters arriving from Syria's direction landed in the rugged highlands east of Baalbek, a barren mountain zone stretching towards the border.
The airborne raid in the eastern Bekaa valley stunned many, as Israel’s military campaign has so far largely focused on southern Lebanon and Beirut’s southern suburbs. Even during the 2024 Israeli war on Lebanon, the Israelis never landed in there.
The special forces then moved towards the village of Nabi Chit, where they engaged in violent clashes with Hezbollah fighters near a cemetery. After a four-hour fight, the pitch-black skies were filled with fire as the commandos eventually withdrew under the cover of Israeli fighter jets and helicopters.
They were wearing uniforms similar to those of the Lebanese army, and used ambulances which looked like those of the Hezbollah-affiliated Islamic Health Authority, the Lebanese army said.
Later, the Israeli army revealed the purpose of the highly unusual mission: to search for the remains of Ron Arad, an Israeli Air Force navigator captured in 1986, whom Hezbollah allegedly held in Nabi Chit. Pictures circulating online showed an empty dug grave, reportedly in the town’s cemetery.
The commando mission comes two months after another brazen operation in Nabi Chit related to the Arad case, involving Lebanese and foreign spies, a shady scam and the kidnapping of a Lebanese retired officer, according to details shared by a senior security source with The National.
Four decades after the kidnapping, Israel has not given up on uncovering the fate of the Israeli pilot kidnapped during Lebanon’s civil war by Amal-affiliated fighters.
The Israeli army “will continue to operate relentlessly, day and night, out of a deep commitment to bringing all of Israel’s sons, the fallen and the missing, back home to the State of Israel,” it said on Saturday.
The clashes in Nabi Chit marked one of the most violent nights in the Bekaa since the latest conflict began, with Lebanon’s Health Ministry reporting a toll of at least 41 dead and 41 wounded. The Israeli army reported no injuries, adding its troops did not find anything related to Mr Arad at the location.
A shadowy scheme
Two months ago, Ahmad Chokr, a former Lebanese General Security officer whose brother is suspected of involvement in the capture of Ron Arad, mysteriously disappeared.
Israel's Mossad intelligence agency was reportedly behind the secret mission to kidnap the Lebanese officer in a shadowy scheme. The senior security official told The National that the judiciary was working on the case, with security agencies following leads. The kidnapping, the source added, reportedly involved a cell of four people, currently under investigation.
“One of them is Lebanese and has been arrested. The three others are one Lebanese woman, one Swedish Syrian man and one Lebanese French man, all out of the country,” the source said.
The security official said the Swedish Syrian man arrived in Lebanon two days before the kidnapping and left on the day of the disappearance. It is so far unclear when the two others came and left.
The fate of Ahmad Chokr remains unknown, and it is unclear what information he might have had about the Israeli pilot decades later, as a retired member of the Lebanese army with no reported political affiliation.
Mr Chokr was lured into a villa in Riyaq in Bekaa, where he was supposed to be involved in a real estate deal but then vanished, the source added. “This was the last signal from his phone. He disappeared after that," said the source.
Before the war resumed on Monday, The National visited the village, with its streets filled with images of Hezbollah’s secretary generals and Iran’s late supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Posters of “martyrs” killed during the 2023-2024 Israel-Hezbollah conflict lined the streets.
The village located in the Bekaa Valley, where Hezbollah was founded in the 1980s, was only starting to recover from months of conflict. Roads were bustling, despite sporadic Israeli attacks, amid daily Israeli breaches of the 2024 ceasefire that ended 66 days of intense Israeli bombardment campaign.
The town is proud of its relationship with the group. On a normal day, its high street flourishes, but now it resembles a demolition site. Nabi Chit is littered with photos of the men killed by Israel – from Abbad Moussawi, Hassan Nasrallah’s predecessor as Hezbollah sectretary general, to Foad Shokr, the former Hezbollah military commander.
“We are the people of this land – we have held on to it,” the town’s mayor Hani Al Moussawi told The National in November.
“This is our land but the enemy wants to swallow it and make it part of its so-called greater state. That dream will never come true.”
As Israel resumes its attacks on Lebanon, putting increased pressure on the Bekaa Valley, after emptying south Lebanon and the Beirut southern suburbs, Nabi Chit has become yet another front line.
