He Is the Last Israeli Hostage Still in Gaza

There were hundreds, then dozens, and then just a few. Now there's one Israeli hostage left in Gaza: Ran Gvili. Gvili, a 24-year-old police officer known affectionately as "Rani," was killed while fighting Hamas militants during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war. After a series of ceasefire-mandated exchanges of hostages for Palestinians held by Israel, Gvili's body still has not been recovered, the AP reports. His remains are somewhere in Gaza. On Thursday, as Israel woke to the news that remains militants returned the previous day belonged to another hostage, the country mourned Gvili as a hero who died fighting to save a kibbutz that was not his own.

"The first to go, the last to leave," his mother, Talik Gvili, wrote on Facebook Thursday. "We won't stop until you come back." On the morning of Oct. 7, Gvili was at home, his younger sister Shira Gvili said in an interview with the AP. He had been on medical leave from his elite police unit for a broken shoulder. Still, when he heard that gunmen were attacking panicked partygoers at the site of the Nova Music Festival, he headed straight for the venue grounds, along with other men from the unit. Nova later became the site of the largest civilian massacre in Israeli history, when 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. Unlike those from other Israeli kibbutzim targeted that day, the residents of Alumim survived. They credit that to men like Gvili, who joined a group of emergency response team members, soldiers, and police officers who fended off waves of intruding militants. The return of Gvili's remains would mark the completion of the first phase of US President Trump's 20-point ceasefire plan. The next phases of the ceasefire agreement will be much more complicated to fulfill. 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.