Israeli troops located the remains of the last remaining hostage, police officer Ran Gvili, in northern Gaza on Monday and returned his body to Israel for burial.
Mr Gvili (24) was killed defending kibbutz Alumim in southern Israel during the Hamas-led attack on October 7th, 2023, which sparked the war in Gaza. His return marks the end of Israel’s hostage saga, which began when 251 hostages were seized.
Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu described the return as “an extraordinary achievement” for Israel.
“We promised, and I promised, to bring everyone back, and we brought everyone back to the very last one,” he said. “Rani is a hero of Israel. He went in first, he came out last. He came back.”
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Hamas issued a statement saying the return of the last prisoner “confirms our commitment to all the demands of the agreement to cease the war on the Gaza Strip.”
Before the body was discovered, Israel had agreed to reopen the Rafah crossing between southern Gaza and Egypt, which has been mostly closed since May 2024, when the Palestinian side was seized by Israeli forces.
It was meant to have reopened during the first stage of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, which began in October but Israel had delayed the move, linking it to the return of the last hostage body.
US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner held talks over the weekend with Mr Netanyahu and pressed him to open the crossing to enable stage 2 of the Gaza ceasefire to begin.
“As part of president Trump’s 20-point plan, Israel agreed to open the Rafah crossing in a limited manner for the passage of people only, with a full Israeli monitoring mechanism,” a statement from the prime minister’s office said.
“The opening of the crossing was conditioned on the return of all living hostages and on Hamas making a 100 per cent effort to locate and return all fallen hostages.”
The crossing will be operated by Palestinian Authority forces under the supervision of the European Union’s EUBAM (border assistance) mission and Israel will receive a full list of all people entering and leaving Gaza via the terminal.
Mr Gvili had been buried in a Muslim cemetery in the Shejaiah neighbourhood of Gaza city, on the Israeli side of the yellow line demarcation border. Israel believes the Islamic Jihad buried Gvili in the cemetery, thinking incorrectly that he was one of their own fighters or at least Palestinian.
Recently obtained intelligence led to the cemetery and dozens of soldiers examined some 250 bodies. With the help of dental records and a fingerprint match a positive identification was made before the body was returned to Israel.
