This year marked the 15th anniversary of the capture of Air Force navigator Ron Arad in Lebanon. Each passing year brings new uncorroborated stories, such as abortive multipartite spy swaps and a late 1980s initiative to release Arad in exchange for Lebanese and Palestinian security prisoners (allegedly turned down by Israel lest the latter releases inflame the intifada). Involved in the late-1980s contacts was Yevgeny Primakov, now Russian foreign minister, who during a recent visit to Israel said that to the best of his knowledge Arad was no longer alive. Israel has written off neither Arad nor its other missing men: Zecharia Baumel, Zvi Feldman, and Yehuda Katz.

Recently, four more names have been added to the list of the missing. In October of 2000, Hizbullah crossed over the border into Israel and kidnapped three Israeli soldiers - Adi Avitan, Binyamin Avraham and Omar Souad. They are all being held in Lebanon. Also in October, Hizbullah announced that another Israeli citizen, Elchanan Tannenbaum had also been abducted.