Family of Soldier Killed in Yom Kippur War Discovers Empty Grave
Israeli soldiers place the national flag on graves of killed comrades at the Mount Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem. Image by Getty Images
The family of an Israeli soldier killed in the Yom Kippur War discovered an empty grave after illegally exhuming the burial site.
After its finding early Saturday morning at the Mount Herzl military cemetery, the family of Zion Tayeb called for the Israel Defense Forces to set up an independent investigation, the Walla news website reported Sunday. Walla first reported the discovery of the empty grave.
Israel’s Supreme Court last year refused the family’s request to exhume the body in order to positively identify it as Tayeb’s.
“The family’s request to unearth the grave was examined by the High Court, which accepted the state’s position and determined that the body was positively identified and as such there was no cause for digging up the site,” the IDF said in a statement after the exhumation, according to The Jerusalem Post.
Tayeb’s family reportedly had long suspected that his body was not recovered after he was killed on Mount Hermon on the first day of the war in October 1973.
The bodies of Tayeb and five other soldiers were missing following an attack by a Syrian commando unit. Several months later the Israeli army told the family that it had found the bodies and buried them on Mount Herzl.
Tayeb’s family believed he had been kidnapped alive and were suspicious about the body in the grave.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we need 500 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Our Goal: 500 gifts during our Passover Pledge Drive!
