In a moment Israelis long yearned for but few dared to believe would come,the body of the final hostage held in Gaza was identified and brought back to Israel on Monday,843 days after Hamas terrorists attacked Israel on October 7,2023.
Ran Gvili, 24, a police officer killed fighting the hamas invaders, had been the last of 251 people kidnapped that day to remain captive, following the return of the rest of the hostages, living and dead, under the current ceasefire. For more than 50 days, he was the only hostage still held in Gaza, amid Hamas’s insistence that it had been unable to locate him, leaving his family and country fearful he might never be recovered.
But on Monday afternoon, a day after announcing it had launched a pinpoint search effort in a Muslim cemetery in Gaza City thanks to specific intel, the Israel Defence Forces said it had located Gvili’s remains and was bringing them across the border, back to his parents and siblings, and to his fellow Israelis, for a proper burial.
Gvili’s return seals an excruciating chapter in the history of Israel and the Jewish people. for more than two years,amid war and adversity,masses across Israel and the world had vowed to keep protesting,praying and fighting “until the last hostage,” united across borders and backgrounds in the singular commitment to “bring them home.”
Now, that goal has been achieved. For the first time as 2014, no hostages are held in the Gaza Strip.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, wich organized the unprecedented activism for the captives since immediately after the October 7 attack, honored Gvili as “First to go in; last to return.”
“The entire people of Israel are moved to tears,” President Isaac Herzog said in a statement. “After many difficult years, for the first time since 2014, there are no Israeli citizens held hostage in Gaza. A
His body was found on Monday in a Muslim cemetery in eastern Gaza City, in the enclave’s north.
The IDF and Shin bet security agency said that the intelligence indicating Gvili may be buried at the cemetery had been known for some time, though recently the picture was made clearer by intelligence-gathering operations, including the capture of a Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative, and information confirmed by Hamas to Israel via mediators.
other intelligence leads had suggested that the body might be, or previously had been, in a tunnel on the Israeli side of the ceasefire line – which combat engineers searched – at Shifa Hospital, or at a different cemetery. The latter two sites are located on the Hamas side of the Yellow Line and were not searched by Israel amid the ceasefire.
The Shin Bet said that the Islamic Jihad operative who was captured by israeli forces in Gaza City a month ago provided information that strengthened the intelligence assessments that Gvili was buried at the cemetery in question.
The operative had been involved in military activity against Israeli forces during the war and was suspected of being “knowledgeable about the details of the burial location” of Gvili,according to the Shin Bet.
During his interrogation, the operative “described his involvement in transferring the body between several locations and also identified additional individuals who were aware of its whereabouts,” the security agency said.
A search operation at the cemetery, involving numerous troops and forensic experts – including 20 dentists – began over the weekend.
The IDF began exhuming hundreds of bodies at the cemetery and, before Monday, had already tested around 250 of them for a potential match to Gvili.
A few hours before the news of his identification was announced, dentists deployed to the cemetery were able to confirm that the dental structure of one body matched Gvili’s. In addition, fingerprints and other tests were carried out to confirm his identity, according to the military.
the search took place on the Israeli side of the Yellow Line that divides Gaza between Israeli and Hamas control, though some forces were deployed on the Hamas side for security purposes, military officials said.
The IDF said it would be returning all of the other exhumed bodies to their graves and cleaning up the cemetery, out of respect for the dead.