The Israeli army recovers the remains of the last hostage kidnapped in Gaza

BarcelonaTwenty-seven months after the Palestinian attacks of October 7, 2023, Israel has recovered the remains of the last of the 255 hostages taken since that day in the Gaza Strip. The army announced this in a statement on Monday at noon, after a two-day search operation in the northern part of the enclave.

"After completing the identification process at the National Forensic Medicine Center, in cooperation with the Israeli police and the Military Rabbinate, [military] representatives informed the family of the deceased Ran Gvili that his body has been returned for burial," the army spokesman said. "Thus, all the hostages held in the Gaza Strip have been repatriated," he added. According to Israeli media, the body was recovered in the Gaza Strip territory that Israeli troops continue to occupy east of the Yellow Line established by the Trump administration, which encompasses 60% of Gaza.

The Israeli prime minister's office stated that the recovery of the remains of Gvili, a 24-year-old man from the Meitar community in southern Israel, "closes the circle." Gvili served as an officer in the Yasam special patrol unit of the Israeli police in the Negev district. He was killed in the attack on Kibbutz Alumim, and his body was taken to Gaza. According to information from Jerusalem Post Citing military sources, Gvili was buried in a cemetery because the Islamic Jihad militia mistook him for one of their members. After receiving intelligence that was not provided by Hamas, an Israeli guerrilla unit entered the cemetery, exhumed more than 200 bodies, and, with the help of a forensic team, located the policeman's remains.

Reopen the Rafah crossing

Benjamin Netanyahu's government had announced that once his body had been recovered, it would begin the second phase of US President Donald Trump's plan for the StripThis agreement entails the opening of the Rafah crossing, Gaza's lifeline to the world, for the departure of civilians and the entry of reconstruction materials, as well as the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the territory, the demilitarization of Hamas, and the establishment of a technocratic Palestinian government overseen by a presidential council. Until now, Israel had delayed the commitments of the first phase of the ceasefire, including the entry of humanitarian aid, claiming that Hamas had not fulfilled its part by returning all hostages. Hamas was supposed to return all hostages, living and dead, within 72 hours of the ceasefire taking effect, signed last October, but had already warned of the difficulties in locating the bodies buried in the early days of the most destructive war in the territory. The Palestinian militant group handed over twenty live Israeli hostages and the bodies of 27 deceased hostages (Israelis and foreigners), but in recent weeks claimed it could not locate Gvili.

The discovery of the body coincides with the deadline Israel had set in the latest negotiations with Donald Trump to reopen the Rafah crossing and prevents the Netanyahu government from having to take that step without having recovered all the hostages. Now Benjamin Netanyahu has no excuse not to open the Rafah crossing and allow the entry of aid and heavy machinery for reconstruction, as well as the medical evacuations of thousands of sick and wounded who still cannot be treated in a healthcare system destroyed during the genocide.

But in a speech in the Israeli Parliament, the prime minister made his priority clear: "The next stage is not reconstruction, but the disarmament of Hamas and the demilitarization of the Gaza Strip."