Hamas search for Ran Gvili slows amid Israeli strikes in Gaza — Arab diplomats

By Jacob Magid

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17 December 2025, 9:48 pm

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Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief

Hamas operatives and Egyptian workers, accompanied by members of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), head to the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City to search for the remains of Ran Gvili, December 8, 2025. (AP/Jehad Alshrafi)

WASHINGTON — Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s search for the body of Ran Gvili has slowed in recent days against the backdrop of Israeli strikes in Gaza,” two Arab diplomats tell The Times of Israel.

An IDF strike over the weekend killed senior Hamas commander Raed Saad, in what Washington has privately recognized was a violation of the ceasefire, the US official says.

The two Arab diplomats say it isn’t immediately clear whether the slowed search for Gvili — the final hostage still held in Gaza — is due to the difficult security and humanitarian conditions on the ground in Gaza or Hamas’s response to the Israeli strikes.

The diplomats spoke to The Times of Israel as part of a story revealing that the US has secured commitments from six countries to have their leaders join US President Donald Trump on the Board of Peace responsible for overseeing the management of postwar Gaza.