Father of last slain Israeli hostage in Gaza: ‘We pray he won’t be another Ron Arad’

The father of Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, the last slain Israeli hostage still held in the Gaza Strip, said Thursday that he fears his son will never be returned.

“We pray of course that he will not be another Ron Arad or [Hadar] Goldin,” Itzik Gvili told Kan news. “That we don’t drag it out for many more years.”

Goldin, an IDF soldier who was killed in 2014 and whose body was held in Gaza for over a decade, was returned to Israel this month. Arad, an Israeli Air Force navigator who was captured in Lebanon in 1988 after ejecting from his aircraft, has been missing ever since.

Police Master Sgt. Gvili was killed battling Hamas terrorists in Kibbutz Alumim on October 7, 2023, and his body was abducted to Gaza. Gvili is one of two slain hostages who remain in Gaza. The second is Thai national Sudthisak Rinthalak, who was killed by Hamas terrorists the same day in Kibbutz Be’eri, where he was employed as an agricultural worker.

“We’re moving forward because we have to,” Itzik Gvili said. “Hamas says they’re looking for his body, but we don’t see any progress.”

He added that “they probably know where he is. They are playing games and deceiving us,” though he did not offer further information.

Regarding Israeli authorities, he said, “I know that they don’t know much” about the location of Ran’s remains.

Al Jazeera reported Thursday that fresh searches were underway for the remains of a hostage in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza. An Israeli military source confirmed the matter to Kan.

Itzik Gvili expressed his concern that backing for the families of remaining hostages will dwindle now that all but two have returned, with the main hostage support organization, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, already saying it will significantly narrow its activities.

“As far as I am concerned, until Ran comes back, he is alive,” Gvili said. “I have nothing else to hope for. Perhaps there will be a miracle, and he will still be alive.”

Gvili was declared dead by Israeli authorities in January 2024, based on various findings and intelligence information.

Itzik Gvili said that though he hadn’t spoken to the media much in the past, he now intended to be more vocal so that the family’s plight will not slip from the government’s and the public’s eye.

Describing his son as a “hero” for continuing to fight even after he was injured in battle, the father said, “Just like Ran didn’t forget the nation on that day, I don’t want the nation to forget him.”

Ran’s mother, Talik Gvili, told the Ynet outlet that it was “an unsettling time” for the family, though she was “happy that hostages returned and families are getting closure and can begin breathing again as much as possible.”

She said she knows searches are being conducted in Gaza for Ran’s remains in the area where he is known to have been taken, and that the family is receiving daily updates from Israeli officials.

“We hope that they will find him,” she said, also adding she was hoping for “a miracle” that will see him return alive. “From the first day, I have been imagining him returning on his own two feet. It is hard, not easy to imagine something like that.”

Talik said she, too, hopes the media will “remain with us until everyone comes back.”

On Tuesday, Hamas returned the remains of Dror Or, with his identity being confirmed by forensic authorities the following day.

The hostages were among 251 abducted from Israel when Hamas led a devastating invasion of the country on October 7, 2023, that killed 1,200 people and triggered a war in Gaza.

Following a ceasefire deal reached last month, Hamas and other terror groups returned all the living hostages they held and then gradually handed over the remains of the deceased, except for Givili and Rinthalak.

The Gazan terror groups are obligated to return all the deceased hostages to Israel under the terms of the ceasefire deal. However, they claim they have had trouble locating the remaining bodies despite repeated searches.