Promise Kept: IDF Recovers Body of Final Israeli Held in Gaza
Israel on Tuesday closed one of the most painful chapters in its modern history with the return of the body of Sgt. 1st Class Ran Gvili, the last Israeli hostage—living or dead—still held in the Gaza Strip.
The Israel Defense Forces said Gvili’s remains were recovered in a complex operation made possible by what officials described as extraordinary intelligence work: months of analysis, cross-checking of captured documents, interrogation of detainees, and the piecing together of fragmentary clues gathered during fighting across Gaza. Senior officers said the breakthrough came only after a long process of narrowing down locations and confirming identities under battlefield conditions.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir told Gvili’s family that the military had kept its promise that no one would be left behind.
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The return of hostages was one of Israel’s central goals from the first days of the war, alongside dismantling Hamas’ military and governing capabilities and ensuring that Gaza would no longer pose a threat to Israel. With Gvili now home, that goal—at least in its most human sense—has been fulfilled. The other objectives are harder to measure. Hamas has been badly degraded and its leadership scattered, but what “no longer a threat” means will depend on the durability of deterrence and whatever political and security arrangements follow.
For Israelis, the emotional meaning of the moment is unmistakable. A burden carried for more than a decade has finally been set down.
For the past 4,209 days—since the night of July 19–20, 2014, when Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades fighters took captive the body of Sgt. 1st Class Oron Shaul, killed in fighting in Shejaiya—Israelis have been held in the strip, either alive or dead. That is more than 11 and a half years. More than 6 million minutes.
The return of Gvili’s body ends that grim era.
At the same time, the moment is not without unease. Some in Israel warned that Hamas cannot be relied upon to honor agreements without sustained pressure, and that the final recovery of hostages was achieved not through goodwill, but through military and intelligence persistence.
Still, across the country, the prevailing feeling was one of quiet, exhausted relief: a promise kept, a circle closed, and a long, cruel chapter finally brought to an end.
