JERUSALEM (AP) — 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.
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."
‘The Shield of Alumim’
At the entrance to Kibbutz Alumim, one of the many border villages militants attacked on Oct. 7, there is a sign emblazoned with a photo of Gvili smiling in his uniform, his name beneath it.
“He fought a heroic battle, saving the lives of the kibbutz members," the sign says. "Since then he has been known as ‘Rani, the Shield of 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.
Migrant workers on the kibbutz, however, met a different fate. Left exposed in agricultural areas outside the kibbutz’s defensive perimeter, 22 foreign nationals were killed, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
Gvili died fighting in battle
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.
Sgt. Richard Schechtman, a fellow police officer who also fought in the battle, said that Gvili appeared to immediately know what to do.
“Rani was at the head of the team — because that’s who he was,” Schechtman was quoted as telling the Israeli news site Ynet. "Rani and I were standing on the road. I saw the terrorists, but I hesitated because it was the first time in my life I’d ever seen a terrorist face-to-face, and I had a moment of, ‘Wait, what am I seeing?’ Then Rani pulled the pin and opened fire — and the whole team followed him.”
At one point in battle, Gvili ran to the western flank of the kibbutz to fight militants arriving in trucks, said his mother, who has spoken with others who fought with him that day. That's where he was injured in the leg.
“He radioed his team to warn that more vehicles carrying terrorists were approaching," his mother said in an interview with Ynet. “He opened fire, and they came at him. He fought them alone, injured in both his leg and arm, and he took down those monsters.”
Israel's military says Gvili's body was abducted to Gaza by the militants soon after. The military confirmed his death, based on an intelligence assessment, four months later.
Last step in first phase of ceasefire
The return of Gvili’s remains would mark the completion of the first phase of U.S. President Donald Trump’s 20-point ceasefire plan. The first phase also calls for the release of thousands of Palestinians from Israel, both alive and dead, and an increase of aid shipments into war-ravaged Gaza.
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.
Family worries Gvili's remains will not come back
Gvili's family — which includes his brother, Omri — is holding out hope they'll receive the remains soon.
“We see all the other families whose sons came back and we see in their eyes that they have relief," his sister said. "This is why it’s so important. Because we want to move on with our with our life and just remember Rani.”
Ran was a hero, but he was more than that, she recalled: He was protective and goofy; he occasionally told bad jokes that everyone laughed at; he loved playing guitar and singing ‘The House of the Rising Sun'; and he had a tattoo on his leg of his dog, Luna, who the family now cares for.
Both his mother, Talik, and father, Itzik Gvili, say they fear a worst-case scenario of the type experienced by families of Israeli soldiers Hadar Goldin or Ron Arad.
Goldin was killed in Gaza in 2014. His body was only returned to Israel about a month ago as part of the ceasefire. Arad was abducted in Lebanon in 1988 after ejecting from his aircraft. He's never been found.
“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.”
“As far as I am concerned, until Ran comes back, he is alive,” the father said. “I have nothing else to hope for."
