The Israeli military said Monday that it had recovered the remains of Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, an Israeli police officer whose body was the last one held in Gaza, marking an important milestone for the Israeli public and clearing the way to the second phase of President Trump’s peace plan.
Sergeant Gvili was part of an elite police counterterrorism unit when he rushed into battle on Oct. 7, 2023, as Hamas led a surprise assault on southern Israel, setting off the two-year war in Gaza.
He was shot and wounded as he defended one of Israel’s border communities. He was then seized and taken to Gaza by militants from Palestinian Islamic Jihad, an armed extremist group that joined in the attack, according to the Israeli authorities.
The Israel Defense Forces said it identified Sergeant Gvili’s remains after a focused search in an area of central Gaza that began over the weekend. It said his family was notified that his body had been identified and that he was being buried.
“With this, all hostages have been returned from the Gaza Strip to the State of Israel,” the military said in a statement.
The retrieval of Sergeant Gvili’s remains closes a painful chapter for Israelis, who have been gripped by the fate of the hostages taken during the attack. The militants abducted about 250 people to Gaza that day, most of them civilians. Many were released during two brief cease-fires, but dozens perished in captivity.
It also paves the way for the next phase of the cease-fire, though that is fraught with uncertainties, including the thorny question of whether Hamas will agree to disarm. Israel had insisted that Gaza’s border with Egypt would not reopen — part of the truce — until Sergeant Gvili’s body was returned.
Israel announced early on Monday that it would reopen the Rafah Crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip once it completed its search for Sergeant Gvili’s remains. The move would allow Palestinians who fled the enclave during the two-year war to return home for the first time.
Under the terms of President Trump’s cease-fire plan, which took effect on Oct. 10, all the remaining captives, alive or deceased, were supposed to have been released within 72 hours.
Twenty living hostages were returned quickly in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, including 250 who had been serving life sentences for deadly attacks on Israelis.
The return of deceased captives to Israel was much slower. Hamas said it needed time and heavy equipment to retrieve some of the bodies, saying they were under rubble after two years of bombardment. Each of the bodies of 28 captives in Gaza was exchanged for the bodies of 15 deceased Gazans.
Israel accused Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad of intentionally dragging their feet over returning the remains.
It was unclear on Monday whether or to what degree either group had assisted in pinpointing the location of Sergeant Gvili’s remains. Israel said it had narrowed its search after collecting and refining intelligence on the matter.
Analysts said Hamas may have been trying to stave off the second phase of the cease-fire and, particularly, calls for the group to put down its weapons, which it regards as tantamount to surrender.
Hamas rebuffed Israel’s accusations, saying that, in Sergeant Gvili’s case, the location of his remains had been unknown and bad weather had hampered the search.
In any case, plans for carrying out the second phase of the deal have been vague. It calls for Hamas to hand over governing of the enclave to a technocratic committee of Palestinians and international experts, supported by an international stabilization force deployed in Gaza. But both parts of the plan have yet to take shape.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel brought Sergeant Gvili’s family to accompany him on his visit to the United States last month for meetings with Mr. Trump and administration officials.
After the meeting, Sergeant Gvili’s family said the two leaders had shown “genuine commitment” to securing the return of his body. They called for further pressure on Hamas to locate his remains and that the cease-fire must not move ahead without it.
“Time doesn’t heal my broken heart — it only reduces the chance of bringing Ran home,” Talik Gvili, Sergeant Gvili’s mother, said at the time.
Aaron Boxermancontributed reporting.
Isabel Kershner, a senior correspondent for The Times in Jerusalem, has been reporting on Israeli and Palestinian affairs since 1990.
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