Zechariah Baumel

Zechariah Baumel, also known as Zachary Baumel, was an American-Israeli soldier in the Israel Defense Forces. On the night of 10-11 June 1982, during the Battle of Sultan Yacoub in the 1982 Lebanon War, his unit was attacked and he and five other comrades were declared missing. One had been killed and was later found buried in Syria, and two were located alive in Syria and returned to Israel a few years later. But Baumel and two others remained unaccounted for. Until his death in 2009, Baumel's father Yona kept his son's case in the public eye, traveling around the world to uncover leads to verify the persistent rumors that his son was still alive, and criticizing the Israeli army for not pursuing the case vigilantly.