Father of last hostage Ran Gvili: ‘Hard for me to accept condolences until I see his body’

For the second week in a row, hundreds gathered at Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square to support the family of police officer Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, the final hostage whose body is held captive in Gaza.

Itzik Gvili, Ran’s father, spoke about his son in the present tense.

“It’s hard for me to accept condolences. Until I see his body, I don’t speak about him in the past tense,” he said.

Gvili mentioned the police officers present at the gathering, “who saved the nation,” and described that October 7 morning, when they woke Ran early in the morning to tell him about the Hamas invasion.

Ran Gvili, a police master sergeant who had a broken shoulder, went to fight at Kibbutz Alumim.

“His shoulder was broken and he didn’t think twice about fighting,” said Gvili. “He said to me, ‘Do you think I’d let my friends fight alone?’”

His son told him that he could move his hand and carry ammunition, and that was all he needed.

“He didn’t think twice, he went and fought, even with two bullets in his body,” said Gvili.

With only one hostage family left, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, the ad hoc organization that came together in the days after October 7, 2023, decided with the Gvilis to stop holding the costly weekly rallies that had been held on most Saturday nights for the last two years.

The Forum is closing at the end of the month, although a cadre of volunteers will remain to assist the Gvili family in diplomatic and media efforts.

The Gvilis have decided to focus their rallying efforts on a weekly Friday afternoon gathering in Hostages Square, joining forces with the weekly pre-Sabbath Kabbalat Shabbat events hosted by different kibbutz communities for the last two years.

Smaller rallies will be held on Saturday evening in Meitar, the Gvilis’ hometown, in Shaar Hanegev in the south, and in Carmei Gat, with the Kibbutz Nir Oz community.

Bereaved father Ruby Chen, the father of fallen soldier Itay Chen, also spoke at the Friday Hostages Square gathering.

“It’s day 798, and on Sunday it will be day 800,” says Chen. “I remember day 100, with the 24-hour rally, and we said we wouldn’t reach day 200 — certainly not beyond that.”

He noted that his son, Itay, whose body was returned to Israel on November 5, was the last of the soldiers killed on October 7 to be returned, and Ran Gvili is the last of the hostages.

“With Rani’s return, we will be able to say: the 7/10 war — over,” said Chen.

In his remarks, Chen called for an independent, non-political state commission of inquiry and said that “everyone wants” a conscription law that includes “everyone under the stretcher, sharing the burden.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government are refusing to establish a state commission of inquiry, while at the same time advancing a bill to enshrine draft exemptions for Haredi men.

“I call on our politicians to remember how everyone fought together on 7/10, just as the Hasmoneans did then,” said Chen, referring to the Jewish priestly family who led the Maccabean Revolt, the events that led to the upcoming Hanukkah holiday.

Released hostages Eitan Horn and Yocheved Lifschitz, who were both taken from Kibbutz Nir Oz, were also present at the gathering, as was Dani Miran, the father of released hostage Omri Miran.