Israel will ‘never discover’ Arad’s fate

Israel will probably never find out the fate of missing navigator Ron Arad, a senior Israeli figure said this week.

Last weekend, Hizbollah delivered a dossier on its efforts to locate the navigator, who bailed out over Lebanon 22 years ago, as part of the prisoner deal.

“After 22 years, I don’t think there is anything new we will find out,” said the source, who has seen all the intelligence on the issue. “I don’t remember another case in which a man disappeared for 20 years and nothing was heard of him that was solved. I can’t see a light at the end of the tunnel.”

 The dossier included an 80-page report on Hizbollah efforts to discover Lt-Col Arad’s whereabouts but included little new, apart from two photographs of Lt-Col Arad in captivity, a letter and a few fragments of a diary. Hizbollah assumes that Lt-Col Arad died, probably in May 1988. Israel has inconclusive information that Mr Arad was held at some stage by Iranian agents.