Hundreds join Ran Gvili’s family to demand return of last hostage: ‘We don’t forget’

Slain police officer’s mother Talik says he’s being ‘abandoned,’ urges no progress in ceasefire until his return; weekly gathering shows death in battle ‘wasn’t in vain,’ she says

Hundreds gathered for a Kabbalat Shabbat service at Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square on Friday to honor slain hostage Ran Gvili, the last Israeli held in Gaza, and to demand that there be no progress on the truce there until his body is returned.

Gvili, a master sergeant in the police’s Yamam special operations unit, was killed fending off Hamas-led terrorists in southern Israel on October 7, 2023. His body was snatched to Gaza, where it is reportedly held by Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

“If Rani could see us now, from above or below or wherever he is, he’d say: ‘Wow. It wasn’t for nothing. It wasn’t in vain,'” Gvili’s mother Talik said at the weekly gathering.

“When we talk about unity — this is precisely that unity,” she said. “Because at the end of the day we really are a strong nation, and we stick with each other.”

She thanked supporters and urged them to “echo Rani’s name.”

“Today, Rani is not just my boy — he’s your boy, too,” she said. “He needs you now because he’s going to be abandoned.”

“We need to be united to make clear to the world, in no uncertain terms — We don’t forget. And we won’t let anyone leave him there,” she said. “No moving on to the second phase, and not anything, until he’s home.”

The second phase of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza ceasefire plan would see Israel stage a further withdrawal in the Gaza Strip, and Hamas disarm and cede power to an International Stabilization Force and Trump-chaired Board of Peace.

The original text of the plan, first made public in late September, envisioned the second phase beginning only after the return of all 48 hostages, living and dead, who were still in Gaza when Israel and Hamas agreed to a truce-hostage deal on October 9. Mediators have yet to secure an agreement on the second phase.

Hamas has released 20 living hostages and returned the bodies of 27 slain hostages under the October 9 agreement. Only Gvili’s body remains in Gaza. Gaza terror groups say they are not able to locate his body despite weeks of searches.

Citing a need to “adjust to the new reality,” the Gvili family announced earlier in the month that, as the final hostage family, they had agreed with the Hostages and Missing Families Forum to end the mass rallies that the forum had held there on Saturday nights for the past two years.

Instead, the Gvilis attend the pre-Shabbat gatherings that the Kibbutz Movement has held at the Square on Fridays. Talik Gvili said at this Friday’s gathering that attendance grows from week to week.

Among those present on Friday was Eitan Horn, one of the last 20 living hostages, who were released on October 13 — 738 days after they were abducted on October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages, sparking the Gaza war.

At the time, Gvili, 24, was at home in southern Israel’s Meitar awaiting surgery on his shoulder. When the onslaught began, he donned his police uniform and went out to fight. He was killed defending Kibbutz Alumim.