The father of Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, the last fallen Israeli hostage still held inside Gaza, voiced his dread on Thursday that his son may never be brought home. “We pray of course that he will not be another Ron Arad or [Hadar] Goldin,” Itzik Gvili told Kan news. “That we don’t drag it out for many more years.”
Gvili’s reference to Goldin and Arad underscores the haunting parallels he fears. Goldin, who fell in 2014 and whose remains were hidden in Gaza for more than ten years, was recently brought back to Israel. Arad, an IAF navigator captured in Lebanon in 1988 after ejecting from his plane, vanished without a trace and has never been recovered.
Master Sgt. Ran Gvili was killed while heroically confronting Hamas terrorists in Kibbutz Alumim on October 7, 2023. His body was taken into Gaza by the attackers. Only two murdered hostages remain unreturned: Gvili and Thai agricultural worker Sudthisak Rinthalak, who was slain in Kibbutz Be’eri the same day.
Despite the anguish, the family pushes forward. “We’re moving forward because we have to,” Gvili’s father said. “Hamas says they’re looking for his body, but we don’t see any progress.”
He voiced frustration at the terror group’s claims. “They probably know where he is. They are playing games and deceiving us,” he remarked, though he provided no further detail.
Of the Israeli authorities, he added, “I know that they don’t know much” about where his son’s remains are located.
On Thursday, Al Jazeera reported renewed searches for a hostage’s body in Gaza’s Zeitoun neighborhood. The report was later confirmed to Kan by an Israeli military source.
Itzik Gvili worries that as nearly all other hostages have now been returned, public and governmental focus may drift. The Hostages and Missing Families Forum has already announced that it will significantly scale down operations. “As far as I am concerned, until Ran comes back, he is alive,” he said. “I have nothing else to hope for. Perhaps there will be a miracle, and he will still be alive.”
Israel declared Ran Gvili dead in January 2024, based on intelligence assessments and collected evidence.
Having largely avoided the spotlight until now, his father said he intends to speak out more forcefully to ensure that his son’s case doesn’t fade from view. Calling Ran a “hero” for continuing to fight even after being wounded, he added, “Just like Ran didn’t forget the nation on that day, I don’t want the nation to forget him.”
Ran’s mother, Talik Gvili, told Ynet that this period was “an unsettling time” for the family. At the same time, she acknowledged being “happy that hostages returned and families are getting closure and can begin breathing again as much as possible.”
Talik said the family receives daily briefings from officials and knows that searches are taking place in the exact area where Ran’s body was taken. “We hope that they will find him,” she said, adding that she still prays for “a miracle” and imagines her son returning alive. “From the first day, I have been imagining him returning on his own two feet. It is hard, not easy to imagine something like that.”
She appealed for media attention to continue: she hopes journalists will “remain with us until everyone comes back.”
The ordeal continues even as other cases reach closure. On Tuesday, Hamas returned the body of Dror Or, whose identity was verified by forensic experts the following day.
Ran and the other hostages were among 251 people kidnapped when Hamas stormed Israel on October 7, 2023, murdering 1,200 people and igniting the war in Gaza.
Following a ceasefire agreement reached last month, Hamas and allied terror groups freed all surviving captives and subsequently released most of the bodies of the murdered—except for Gvili and Rinthalak.
Under the ceasefire deal, all deceased hostages must be returned. The terror groups now claim they cannot find the final two bodies despite repeated searches.
{Matzav.com}
