‘I’m so proud to be your father’: Itzik Gvili bids his son a final farewell

Jessica Steinberg, The Times of Israel's culture and lifestyles editor, covers the Sabra scene from south to north and back to the center

Itzik Gvili speaks at the funeral of his son, Ran Gvili, in Meitar, on January 28, 2026. (Paulina Patimer/Hostages and Missing Families Forum)
Itzik Gvili speaks at the funeral of his son, Ran Gvili, in Meitar, on January 28, 2026. (Paulina Patimer/Hostages and Missing Families Forum)

Itzik Gvili, the father of fallen police officer Ran Gvili, says he is speaking from his heart and had not prepared his eulogy.

“When we got to Shura (a military base), and opened the coffin and touched you for the first time in two and a half years, it was completely intact,” says Gvili.

Gvili says that IDF units dug up 250 graves in the Gaza City cemetery where his son’s body was buried in their quest to find him, and that the number 250 is the numerical value of his son’s name, Ran, in Hebrew letters.

“That’s another one of the things we got from you,” says Itzik Gvili. “You set everything up from above. I’m so proud to be your father. I miss you every minute and every second.”

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