Impromptu gatherings across Israel mark first time since 2014 without hostages in Gaza

Impromptu gatherings across Israel mark the first time in over 11 years without hostages being held in Gaza, following the return of Ran Gvili’s body to Israel tonight.

In Kfar Saba, a group of activists gather to symbolically remove the shirts, necklaces and pins calling for the return of the hostages. Others remove the poster of Ran Gvili from a wall that had once featured the photos of all 251 hostages, and which were taken down one by one as they were returned.

The group is joined by Ruti Strum, the mother of released hostages Eitan and Iair Horn.

In Tel Aviv, a small group gathers on Begin Road, where, for more than two years, anti-government activists took up the hostages’ cause during weekly Saturday night demonstrations.

Others have flocked to the city’s Hostages Square throughout the evening and into the night.

One such person, whom Israel Hayom identifies only as Elka, tells the news outlet that she cried when she found out that Gvili’s body had been located “because we waited for this for a long time and all the hostages are back.”

She says she headed to Hostages Square “because here is where the people of Israel are, and here the people of Israel are united and honoring the hostages and their families.

“There is no other place I could have been on this day, only here,” she adds, expressing hope that it will become a permanent space “to commemorate all of the victims and fallen of the October 7 war.”