JERUSALEM (AP) — The announcement that the remains of the last hostage in Gaza, Ran Gvili, were recovered Monday ended a painful saga that had transfixed Israel for two and a half years and stalled its ceasefire agreement with Hamas.
There was an outpouring of emotion in Israel after the recovery of the body of the 24-year-old police officer, who was killed while fighting militants during the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war in Gaza.
Beyond Israel, many hoped the ceasefire could move into its second phase.
But for Gvili’s friends and family, the mourning process could begin after an agonizing, monthslong search.
“We see all the other families whose sons came back and we see in their eyes that they have relief,” his sister, Shira Gvili, told The Associated Press in early December, when the last remaining hostage aside from her brother was released. “This is why it’s so important. Because we want to move on with our with our life and just remember Rani.”
Since then, Israelis have known Gvili's story by heart. On the day of the Oct. 7 attack, he was recovering from a broken shoulder but rushed to assist fellow officers. He was killed fighting militants trying to enter a kibbutz, and his body was taken to Gaza. The military confirmed his death four months later.
He is survived by his parents, a sister, and a brother.
“The first to go, the last to leave,” his mother, Talik Gvili, wrote on Facebook after receiving the news Monday. “Our hero.”
Several Israeli leaders posted videos of themselves removing a pin of a yellow ribbon Monday, a sign that the fight to return the hostages was over.
“The entire people of Israel are moved to tears,” President Isaac Herzog wrote on X. “This was an operation of immeasurable importance in fulfilling the sacred obligation to redeem captives.”
He noted it was the first time since 2014 that Israel did not have any hostages held in Gaza. Two soldiers were killed and their bodies taken to Gaza that year. Israel's military retrieved one of the bodies, and the second was released by Hamas in November.
As part of the ceasefire agreement that took effect on Oct. 10, Hamas released 20 living hostages and, over the course of two months, the bodies of 27 of 28 deceased hostages, but said they could not locate Gvili's body.
Many in Israel worried that his remains would never be recovered.
Gvili was one of 251 people, mostly civilians, who were abducted in the Oct. 7 attack, when Hamas-led militants killed more than 1,200 people. In the ensuing war in Gaza, some 71,660 Palestinians were killed, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. The ministry, part of the Hamas-run government, maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts.
On Sunday, Hamas said it had exhausted all efforts to locate Gvili and had turned over information about the body's potential location to Israel. It said troops were searching one of the areas it specified in northern Gaza.
After a major operation to exhume dozens of bodies from a cemetery there, Israel's military said Gvili's remains were identified by his teeth.
Footage on Israeli media showed dozens of soldiers, arms wrapped around each other, singing religious songs as his body was identified and exhumed.
On the morning of the Oct. 7 attack, Gvili was at home, Shira Gvili said. He had been on medical leave from his elite police unit. Still, when he heard that gunmen were attacking panicked partygoers at the Nova Music Festival, he headed for the venue, along with others from his unit.
Nova later became the site of the largest civilian massacre in Israeli history. The militants killed at least 364 people and took more than 40 hostage.
Gvili and the other officers never made it there, his sister said. Instead, they encountered the militants at Kibbutz Alumim.
“He radioed his team to warn that more vehicles carrying terrorists were approaching,” his mother said in an interview with Ynet. “He opened fire, and they came at him. He fought them alone, injured in both his leg and arm, and he took down those monsters.”
At the entrance to Kibbutz Alumim, one of the many border villages militants attacked on Oct. 7, there is a sign emblazoned with a photo of Gvili smiling in his uniform, his name beneath it.
“He fought a heroic battle, saving the lives of the kibbutz members,” the sign says. “Since then he has been known as ‘Rani, the Shield of Alumim.’”
Unlike residents of other Israeli kibbutzim targeted that day, those of Alumim survived. They credit that to men like Gvili, who joined emergency response team members, soldiers and police officers who fended off waves of militants.
Migrant workers on the kibbutz, however, met a different fate. Left exposed in agricultural areas outside the kibbutz’s defensive perimeter, 22 foreign nationals were killed, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
The return of Gvili’s remains marks what should be the completion of the first phase of U.S. President Donald Trump’s 20-point ceasefire plan.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged to reopen the Rafah crossing, which runs between Gaza and Egypt and that Palestinians see as their lifeline to the world. The crossing has been largely closed since May 2024.
The next steps of the ceasefire agreement, which American envoys have been pushing for the past week, will be more complicated. Key elements include deploying an international force to secure Gaza, disarming Hamas and forming a temporary Palestinian government to run day-to-day affairs under the supervision of an international board led by Trump.
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Lidman reported from Tel Aviv, Israel.
