MEITAR, Israel — Israel on Wednesday prepared to bury Ran Gvili, the last Israeli hostage recovered from Gaza, in a funeral that officials and mourners cast as both an intimate farewell and a national moment of closure.
Gvili, 24, an off-duty police officer from the elite Yassam unit, was killed while fighting militants during the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led assault on southern Israel. His body was taken back into Gaza by the Islamic Jihad militant group, Israeli officials say. He was among about 250 people abducted during the attack, which left about 1,200 people dead, according to Israeli tallies, and triggered the war in Gaza that Palestinian health authorities say has killed more than 71,000 people.
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His casket will travel in a procession from Camp Shura — the military facility where Israel has worked to identify victims of the Oct. 7 attack — to his hometown of Meitar in the Negev, where he will be buried. Earlier, a van carrying Gvili’s remains arrived at a forensic center in Tel Aviv, clearing the way for his return home.
Hundreds of mourners, including families with children, filed into the funeral space as the procession was projected on a large screen. Police officers and uniformed soldiers sat in rows of plastic chairs. Some attendees carried Israeli flags; others wore the yellow ribbons that have come to symbolize the hostage ordeal.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog were expected to deliver eulogies. In a televised news conference ahead of the service, Netanyahu said Israel had “fully completed the sacred mission of returning all of our hostages.”
“Ran was the first to charge, and Ran was the last to return,” Netanyahu said, adding: “Many generations will draw inspiration from Ran Gvili, a hero of Israel, and from all our other heroes. This is the generation of heroism. This is the generation of victory.”
Gvili was on medical leave ahead of shoulder surgery when militants broke through the border on Oct. 7. Family members and residents say he grabbed his weapon and headed south to confront the attackers. He was killed in combat near Kibbutz Alumim, which later nicknamed him the “Defender of Alumim.” His body was seized and held in Gaza until its recovery and return.
For many Israelis, the burial of the last hostage marks a painful but vital milestone in the long effort to account for those taken on Oct. 7 — a day that reshaped the country’s sense of security and purpose. Gvili’s return also underscores the human cost that has defined both the initial attack and the war that followed.
The recovery and burial come as Washington says a U.S.-backed plan to end the war moves into a second stage. Israeli officials have described the return of hostages as a core element of the plan’s initial phase. The United States announced earlier this month that the second stage had begun, including steps to reopen Gaza’s Rafah border crossing with Egypt.
In Meitar, the focus Wednesday was on a single life and its absence. As the cortege advanced from Camp Shura, the crowd stood and fell quiet. Flags stirred in a warm southern wind, and the yellow ribbons — symbols of waiting — gave way, at last, to a homecoming.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
