Mother of final hostage Ran Gvili: ‘Someone has to be last, he always wanted to make sure everyone else was OK first’

The mother of the last hostage in Gaza says Israel will not heal until he or his remains are brought home, and that the next phase of a peace plan should not proceed until he is back.

Police officer Ran Gvili was one of 251 hostages seized and taken to Gaza by terrorists on October 7, 2023.

Israeli authorities say they believe he is dead, but his body has not been recovered and his family is clinging to the faint hope that he is still alive.

“We’re at the last stretch and we have to be strong, for Rani, for us, and for Israel. Without Rani, our country can’t heal,” his mother, Talik Gvili, tells Reuters.

Posters of Ran Gvili, known by family and friends as Rani, line the streets of Meitar, his hometown in southern Israel.

When Hamas attacked, he was recovering at home from a broken collarbone. He quickly put on his uniform and joined the fight against the Hamas gunmen around Kibbutz Alumim near Gaza.

Gvili, who was 24 at the time, was badly wounded and Israeli authorities said he did not survive for long after being taken to Gaza, his mother says.

“We want to feel him, we want to feel some tiny doubt [that he died],” his mother says, before adding: “It might just be wishful thinking.”

“We’re not alone,” she says, adding that she felt support and solidarity from across the political spectrum.

She describes her son as a strong and kind-hearted person who would look out for those weaker than him.

“We’re happy everyone has returned, except for Rani. We have become one big family so every hostage who returned brought relief, closure. But somebody had to be last, and it looks like that was our fate,” she says.

“But that was his thing, to make sure everyone else was OK first.”