Israel recovered the remains of its last captive from the Gaza Strip on Monday, scouring a cemetery to unearth the body of a 24-year-old police officer and help a traumatized nation turn the page on one of the most agonizing chapters in its history.
The Israeli military said it had found and brought back the body of Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, a member of an elite police counterterrorism unit who, recuperating from a fractured shoulder, had rushed into battle as Hamas led a surprise assault on Oct. 7, 2023, setting off the two-year war in Gaza.
Completing the recovery of Israel’s fallen paves the way for the next phase of President Trump’s peace plan for Gaza. The plan calls for Israel to reopen the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt, allowing Palestinians who fled the enclave to return home for the first time. But Israel had refused to reopen the border until Sergeant Gvili’s body was returned.
Early Monday, hours before saying it had recovered Sergeant Gvili’s remains, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said that Israel would open the crossing after finishing the search. After the announcement that Sergeant Gvili’s body had indeed been retrieved, a spokesman for the Israeli military unit responsible for overseeing passage in and out of Gaza, Shimi Zuaretz, said that Rafah would reopen in the “next days.” The Israeli government would have to sign off on the exact timing, he said.
Sergeant Gvili was shot while defending one of southern Israel’s border communities, Kibbutz Alumim. 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.
Sergeant Gvili was among about 250 people that Palestinian militants abducted on Oct. 7, most of them civilians, during an attack that left about 1,200 people dead in Israel and unleashed a war that killed some 70,000 Palestinians. Many of the hostages were released during two brief cease-fires, but dozens perished in captivity.
Israeli news outlets reported Monday night that 20 forensic scientists had performed DNA tests on more than 250 other bodies before Sergeant Gvili’s was found, in an operation that began on Saturday.
The chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, posted a video in which he spoke by phone with Sergeant Gvili’s parents. After they described their relief and thanked him and the entire army, he said, “We have completed the mission of bringing everyone back, and we upheld a very meaningful I.D.F. value — leaving no one behind.”
Nothing about the war had been more tormenting to Israelis than the drawn-out captivity of those, alive and dead, who remained in Gaza.
It fueled a powerful antiwar movement aimed at bringing the hostages home, galvanized mass protests in the heart of Tel Aviv and inspired angry slogans on banners, billboards and car bumpers across Israel. Hostages’ families blamed Mr. Netanyahu for prolonging the war and endangering their lives.
The fate of the hostages also turned President Trump into an Israeli national hero when his administration orchestrated a cease-fire that secured the release of the 20 living hostages in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees — including 250 who had been serving life sentences for deadly attacks on Israelis.
The cease-fire, which took effect Oct. 10, also called for Hamas to turn over the bodies of 28 captives in Gaza to Israel within 72 hours. It took three and a half months for Israel to recover the last.
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 returned to Israel 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. Analysts said Hamas may have been trying to stave off the second phase of the cease-fire, particularly its call for the group to put down its weapons, which Hamas has long regarded as essential to its identity and grip on power.
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.
There was a small stampede to claim credit for the recovery of his body.
“This is an extraordinary achievement for the State of Israel,” Mr. Netanyahu, who is up for re-election this year, told reporters in the Knesset. “We promised — I promised — to bring everyone back, and we have brought everyone back, every last one.”
“President Trump made this possible,” Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, wrote on social media.
“Congratulations to my great team of Champions,” Mr. Trump wrote on his social-media site.
Even Hamas took credit, in its own way, saying in a statement that it had “exerted significant efforts in the search” for Sergeant Gvili’s remains, and had provided “information as it became available, which contributed to the recovery of the body.”
Plans for carrying out the second phase of the peace plan are still taking shape. 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 and overseen by a “Board of Peace” led by Mr. Trump.
Last week, Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, sketched out an ambitious, almost fantastical new vision for Gaza, now in ruins, with soaring skyscrapers along the beach, industrial areas and new cities built from scratch. Land is already being cleared for construction to begin in parts of southern Gaza.
But Mr. Netanyahu cautioned on Monday that rebuilding would have to wait.
“We are on the threshold of the next phase,” he said. “The next phase is the disarmament of Hamas and the demilitarization of the Gaza Strip — it is not reconstruction. We have an interest in advancing this phase and not delaying it, and that is what we will do. The sooner we disarm Hamas and demilitarize the Gaza Strip, the sooner we will complete the objectives of the war.”
Mr. Netanyahu 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.
“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.
But all Israelis had seemed to take to heart the recovery of the bodies of their compatriots. Which may help explain why Israel’s police commissioner, Danny Levy, posted a video on Monday of his emotional phone call with Sergeant Gvili’s father, Itzik Gvili.
“I just want to tell you that he was found intact, with his uniform and everything on him,” Commissioner Levy told the bereaved man. “You are receiving your son as he was when he went out — even with a tear in his pants. I don’t know if that is any comfort, but it was important to me to tell you these details, that you should know.”
Later Monday evening, Mr. Gvili was recorded standing with his hands outstretched on the Israeli flag covering his son’s coffin.
“You had every option to stay home, but you told me, ‘Dad, I’m not leaving my friends to fight alone,’” he said. “You went out, and you should see the honor you are being given here. The entire police force, the entire army, the entire nation is with you. I am proud of you, my son.”
Aaron Boxerman contributed reporting.
David M. Halbfinger is The Times’s Jerusalem bureau chief, leading coverage of Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. He also held that post from 2017 to 2021. He was the politics editor from 2021 to 2025.
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