Israel’s healing cannot begin until Police Master Sgt. Ran Gvili is brought home — alive or in body — his mother insists, saying any next steps in a peace framework must wait until her son’s return. “We’re at the last stretch and we have to be strong, for Rani, for us, and for Israel. Without Rani, our country can’t heal,” Talik Gvili told Reuters.
Gvili was among the 251 Israelis kidnapped during the Hamas onslaught in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, the attack that plunged Israel into war in Gaza. Though Israeli officials declared him dead in January 2024, his family continues to cling to a sliver of hope. “We want to feel him, we want to feel some tiny doubt [that he died],” his mother said. “It might just be wishful thinking.”
His hometown of Meitar is covered in posters bearing his face — a constant reminder of the young officer who vanished into Gaza. On the day of the massacre, he had been recuperating from a broken collarbone. Despite the injury, he threw on his uniform and raced to help defend Kibbutz Alumim, where he was gravely wounded. According to Israeli authorities, he did not survive long after being dragged into Gaza.
When Israel and Hamas reached their US-brokered truce-hostage agreement on October 9, 20 captives were still alive and 28 were believed to be dead. Within three days of Israel’s partial withdrawal from Gaza on October 10, the living hostages were freed. In return, Israel released nearly 2,000 Palestinians from custody, including approximately 250 convicted terrorists serving life sentences for the murders of dozens of Israeli civilians.
Over the following two months, Hamas gradually transferred the bodies of 27 deceased captives — including a soldier killed back in the 2014 Gaza war. Hamas claimed battlefield conditions made it difficult to locate all remains. Under the terms of the deal, Israel agreed to return the remains of 15 deceased Gazans for each Israeli hostage declared dead.
Now that the hostage exchanges are nearing their conclusion, President Donald Trump’s ceasefire roadmap envisions negotiations over Gaza’s long-term governance, reconstruction, and disarmament, coupled with deeper Israeli withdrawals and expanded humanitarian access. But asked whether those discussions should begin without her son being brought home first, Talik Gvili was unequivocal: “No way. We won’t let that happen.”
The struggle to bring back the captives sparked a nationwide movement. Hostage posters covered highways and storefronts, and thousands gathered weekly in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square in unified demand for their return. For Gvili’s family, that solidarity has been a lifeline. “We’re not alone,” his mother said, expressing appreciation for support from Israelis of all political backgrounds.
She described her son as someone whose instinct was always to protect others — strong, compassionate, and attentive to anyone more vulnerable than himself. “We’re happy everyone has returned, except for Rani. We have become one big family, so every hostage who returned brought relief, closure. But somebody had to be last, and it looks like that was our fate,” she said. “But that was his thing, to make sure everyone else was okay first.”
{Matzav.com}
