^{Credit: Israel Police}

Israel’s Hostages and Missing Families Forum on Sunday called on the Israeli government and mediators to halt progress on U.S. President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan until the last hostage’s remains are returned.

Responding to reports that the White House is pushing to declare the start of the truce’s second stage, the organization stated on X, “We cannot move to the next phase before Ran Gvili returns home.”

The recovery of 27 of 28 hostage bodies proves that Hamas “knows the location of every hostage and is using this information as a bargaining chip and to deceive the entire world,” Sunday’s statement continued.

The NGO noted that the Palestinian terror organization had pledged to return the remains of all 28 deceased hostages at once on Oct. 13.

“We cannot move forward without the Gvili family receiving closure—without Ran coming back to us,” the Forum concluded.

A source familiar with the details told the Israel Hayom daily on Sunday that Washington was applying heavy pressure on Jerusalem to proceed. However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is reportedly insisting that Hamas first fulfill its obligation to return all hostages, alive and dead.

U.S. officials reportedly want to clarify whether Hamas is making every possible effort to locate the last body. If it is determined that this is the case, they argue there is no reason not to proceed to the next stage.

Israel Security Agency head David Zini visited Cairo last week, where he received information suggesting that Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, an officer in the Israel Police’s elite Special Patrol Unit (Yasam), was possibly buried in Gaza City, according to the Hebrew newspaper.

Israel’s Channel 14 broadcaster on Dec. 2 aired exclusive video footage of the battle in Kibbutz Alumim in which Gvili was mortally wounded.

The footage shows Gvili running over terrorists while taking fire. He is then shot in his leg, after already having been injured in the shoulder. 

Despite his wounds, Gvili keeps firing, while warning fellow officers of additional terrorists moving in. After almost an hour, the terrorists reached him, killed him and abducted his body.

Hamas-led search efforts to recover Gvili’s remains were said to have resumed on Sunday morning in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighborhood.

Under the U.S.-brokered ceasefire and hostage-release agreement that went into effect last month, Hamas committed to returning to Israel for burial all 28 bodies the terrorist group was holding captive on Oct. 13.

However, Hamas slow-walked their return, delaying its disarmament, which is set to take place in the second phase with a deployment of international forces.

Trump’s plan states that terror groups “agree to not have any role in the governance of Gaza, directly, indirectly, or in any form,” and that “all military, terror, and offensive infrastructure, including tunnels and weapon production facilities, will be destroyed and not rebuilt.”

However, Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal on Saturday rejected Trump’s demand that the group disarm, declaring that “protecting the resistance project and its weapons is the right of our people to defend themselves.

“The resistance and its weapons are the ummah’s [Islamic nation] honor and pride,” Mashaal told an anti-Israel summit in Istanbul, adding: “A thousand statements are not worth a single projectile of iron.”

Source: JNS