The remains of the Israeli police sergeant Ran Gvili, who was killed fighting Hamas-led militants on 7 October 2023, have been returned to Israel.
Militants took Gvili’s body to Gaza to use as a bargaining chip. He was the last of 251 people captured that day still held in the territory.
“With this, all hostages have been returned from the Gaza Strip to the State of Israel,” the Israeli military said in a statement.
The handover of the body marks the completion of a key initial demand of Donald Trump’s ceasefire plan for Gaza. It should smooth the way for progress in its second stage, which the US announced earlier this month was already under way.
Israel said the vital Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt would reopen for traffic when Gvili’s body had been returned. It has been closed since Israeli troops seized control of it in May 2024.
It will only be open to pedestrians, so will not ease shortages of food and shelter aid, medicine and other basic humanitarian goods in Gaza, and Israel will retain full control of everyone who enters and leaves, Israeli media reported.
The return of Gvili’s remains marks the end of a long public campaign to bring back the living and the dead, including some who had been captured before 2023.
“After many difficult years, for the first time since 2014, there are no Israeli citizens held hostage in Gaza. An entire nation prayed and waited for this moment,” the country’s president, Isaac Herzog, said in a statement.
Many campaigners have been shifting focus, demanding an independent inquiry into 7 October 2023 attack and the war that followed.
Many protesters and some returned hostages and their relatives have accused the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, of sabotaging ceasefire deals that could have brought their loved ones back sooner and prolonging the war to protect his political career.
Of 166 who came back from Gaza alive, the vast majority were freed in ceasefire deals. Only eight were released by Israeli military operations.
Of the dead, some were killed before they were taken to Gaza, some were killed by their captors, some by Israeli forces and some died of uncertain causes in captivity.
Gvili’s body was found in a cemetery in northern Gaza inside the Israeli-controlled area behind the “yellow line”, the military said.
Israel’s police commissioner, Danny Levy, told Gvili’s family that he had been found in uniform, Haaretz reported. “Ran ‘was found intact with a police uniform. You are receiving your child as he left’,” the paper quoted Levy saying.
