Dozens killed in Lebanon as Israel searches for signs of navigator missing for 40 years

BEIRUT (AP) — An Israeli special force that landed in eastern Lebanon overnight in search of information about a navigator who has been missing for nearly 40 years did not find his remains, the Israeli military said Saturday. The operation left dozens of people dead and dozens more wounded.

Israel has been trying for decades to find out what happened to Ron Arad since he went missing after parachuting from a fighter jet that crashed in Lebanon in 1986. Arad was involved in attacking suspected Palestinian militants. He was captured alive by local gunmen.

The Israeli military did not say where the force landed in Lebanon but the Lebanese army and state media said an Israeli commando force landed on the mountains along the border with Syria before heading to the eastern town of Nabi Chit, where they clashed with Hezbollah and local fighters. Lebanon’s Health Ministry said at least 41 people were killed and 40 wounded overnight in Nabi Chit and areas nearby.

The Lebanese army said three soldiers were among those killed in the exchange of fire. It said four helicopters took part in the operation, two of which conducted the landing. It also reported that residents clashed with the Israeli force while Lebanese troops went on alert and fired light bombs.

Lebanese army commander Gen. Rudolphe Haikal said later Friday that the Israeli force that conducted the operation was dressed in Lebanese army uniforms and used ambulances during the operation with signs of Hezbollah’s Islamic Health Organization.

A resident of Nabi Chit told The Associated Press that the Israeli force entered the town and dug up a grave in a cemetery before it left. The man who spoke on condition of anonymity out of security concerns had no further details.

The Israeli army’s Arabic spokesman Avichay Adraee posted on X that the force did not find Arad's remains or any evidence related to him.

Hezbollah said its members clashed with the Israeli force, and that Israel’s air force conducted some 40 airstrikes in the area in order for the unit on the ground to be able to withdraw.

Arad's wife urged Israel’s leaders not to endanger the lives of Israeli soldiers in their search to bring home his body.

“Our desire to know what happened to Ron stops the moment it endangers Israeli soldiers,” his wife, Tami, wrote on Facebook, noting that the family has said this multiple times through the years.

“For 40 years we have lived with the fact that Ron is missing, and we want to know what happened to Ron, but not at any price. The sanctity of life is above any closing of the circle of certainty for us,” she added.

Adraee said the Israeli force did not suffer any casualties.

A Shiite Muslim faction called the Believers’ Resistance captured Arad after he landed, and released some photos of him early on before all traces of him disappeared.

Arad was believed to have been held in Nabi Chit until 1988, after which he went missing following a fierce battle between Hezbollah fighters and Israeli troops in the village of Meidoun further south.

In December, a retired Lebanese officer, Ahmed Shukr, disappeared in eastern Lebanon while meeting some people who wanted to buy a plot of land. His family believes Israeli operatives kidnapped him to get information about the case and took him to Israel.

Shukr’s wife and brother told The Associated Press recently that the retired officer does not have any information about Arad’s fate.

In 1994, helicopter-borne Israeli commandos landed deep in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley, where they seized the leader of the Believers’ Resistance, Mustafa Dirani, and took him to Israel. Dirani was released 10 years later in a prisoners exchange with Hezbollah.

In 2008, Hezbollah sent to Israel through mediators a report about Arad in which it suggested that he most likely died after escaping from his captors while trying to reach Israel. The Hezbollah report was published by Israeli media outlets at the time.

Elsewhere in Lebanon, Israel’s air force conducted strikes on different parts of eastern and southern Lebanon.

The new airstrikes were the latest since the last round of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah began Monday. The Iran-backed group fired rockets and drones into Israel in retaliation for the killing of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei after Israel and the U.S. began attacking Iran on Feb. 28, triggering the latest war in the Middle East.

On Saturday morning, airstrikes were reported on the southern villages of Zawtar al-Sharqiyah, Arab Saleem and Jibchit. The strike on Jibchit killed six people, including four members of the same family, while in Zawtar al-Sharqiyah five people were killed state news agency said.

Associated Press writer Melanie Lidman contributed to this report from Tel Aviv, Israel.

A grave, background, dug by Israeli forces landed overnight late Friday, searching for Israeli co-pilot Ron Arad who was captured and then went missing after his fighter jet crashed over south Lebanon in 1986, in Nabi Chit village, eastern Lebanon, Saturday, March 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Ali Salem)

People check the damage left by Israeli airstrikes late Friday, in the village of Nabi Chit, eastern Lebanon, Saturday, March 7, 2026, where Israeli forces landed overnight and dug a grave in a cemetery searching for Israeli co-pilot Ron Arad who was captured and then went missing after his fighter jet crashed over south Lebanon in 1986. (AP Photo/Ali Salem)

People check the damage left by Israeli airstrikes, Saturday, March 7, 2026 in the village of Nabi Chit, eastern Lebanon late Friday, where Israeli forces landed overnight and dug a grave in a cemetery searching for Israeli co-pilot Ron Arad who was captured and then went missing after his fighter jet crashed over south Lebanon in 1986. (AP Photo/Ali Salem)

People check the damage left by Israeli airstrikes, Saturday, March 7, 2026, in the village of Nabi Chit, eastern Lebanon late Friday, where Israeli forces landed overnight and dug a grave in a cemetery searching for Israeli co-pilot Ron Arad who was captured and then went missing after his fighter jet crashed over south Lebanon in 1986. (AP Photo/Ali Salem)

A huge crater left by an Israeli airstrike in the village of Nabi Chit, eastern Lebanon late Friday, March 6, 2026, where Israeli forces landed overnight and dug a grave in a cemetery searching for Israeli co-pilot Ron Arad who was captured and then went missing after his fighter jet crashed over south Lebanon in 1986. (AP Photo/Ali Salem)

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — The Florida Bar backtracked Friday on what it said was an erroneous earlier statement its representatives had made indicating that it had an open investigation into Lindsey Halligan, a former top federal prosecutor in Virginia who was named to the job by President Donald Trump but was later found to have been unlawfully appointed.

A letter last month from a bar association representative to a nonpartisan watchdog group that had requested an ethics inquiry into Halligan over her conduct at the Justice Department said there was an “investigation pending.” Jennifer Krell Davis, a spokesperson for the Florida Bar, also said in an email to The Associated Press on Thursday that there was an “open file” on Halligan but declined to comment further, “as active Florida discipline cases are confidential.”

On Friday, however, Davis issued a new statement saying, “The Florida Bar wrote a letter to the complainant erroneously stating that there is a pending Bar investigation” of Halligan. “There is no such pending Bar investigation” of Halligan.

She said the Florida Bar had received a complaint and was monitoring the “ongoing legal proceedings underlying the complaint,” but did not explain the conflicting statements on the existence of an investigation.

Halligan responded Friday evening to emails about the investigation with the message, “Where's my apology?”

The complaint from the Campaign for Accountability centers on Halligan’s brief but turbulent tenure as acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, historically one of the Justice Department’s most elite prosecution offices. A former White House aide under Trump with no prosecutorial experience, Halligan pursued cases against a pair of the president's political appointees but resigned in January as multiple judges questioned the legitimacy of her appointment and cast doubt on her ability to remain in the job legally.

The nonprofit watchdog had requested a bar inquiry into whether Halligan had violated the rules of professional conduct. The complaint cited, among other things, Halligan's handling of a case against former FBI Director James Comey and the fact that she continued to hold herself out as acting U.S. attorney even after a judge concluded that her appointment violated rules governing the selection of federal prosecutors.

The organization posted on its website a letter dated Feb. 4 in which a Florida Bar representative told the group, “We are aware of these developments and have been monitoring them closely. We already have an investigation pending.”

On Friday, Michelle Kuppersmith, the executive director of the Campaign of Accountability, said the Bar had not told the organization that its earlier assertion was erroneous. She said it was “hard to reconcile” the Bar's latest statement with the earlier letter.

“If there is no longer an investigation into Halligan, the question is why not, given that three judges indicated she engaged in conduct that appears to violate ethics rules,” Kuppersmith said in a statement.

Bob Jarvis, a law professor at Nova Southeastern University and member of the Florida Bar, said the most likely reason for the reversal is that the initial confirmation of the investigation was unauthorized. That type of information isn’t normally made public until after a grievance committee makes an actual finding to move forward, he said. The reason is to prevent a baseless accusation from damaging someone’s reputation.

“I think somebody at the Florida Bar probably jumped the gun,” Jarvis said.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a post on the social platform X on Friday that Halligan “not only did nothing wrong — she did a great job.”

“The Florida Bar ‘investigation’ of Lindsey Halligan is totally fake news,” she added.

Halligan, who had served as one of Trump’s attorneys but had no experience as a federal prosecutor, was installed in September after the Trump administration effectively forced out her predecessor, Erik Siebert, amid pressure to bring charges against Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, another longtime Trump foe.

Halligan secured indictments against Comey and James but quickly ran into difficulty as lawyers for Comey raised questions about what they said were irregularities in the grand jury presentation of the case, including legal and factual errors that tainted the process. A judge in November scolded Halligan for “fundamental misstatements of the law,” including what he said was her suggestion to the grand jury that Comey did not have a Fifth Amendment right to not testify.

The Comey and James prosecutions were subsequently dismissed following a challenge by defense lawyers to Halligan's appointment.

Tucker reported from Washington. Associated Press writer David Fischer contributed from Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

FILE - Lindsey Halligan speaks as President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House, Friday, Jan. 31, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)