^{Credit: Ben Gershom/GPO.}

Etgar Lefkovits

The body of the last remaining Israeli hostage in Gaza is being held by Islamic Jihad in the Hamas-controlled section of the northern Gaza Strip, an Israeli official said on Wednesday.

Intelligence regarding the location of Master Sgt. Ran Gvili’s body—including people’s names and aerial photos of the site where his body is believed to have been buried—has been transferred over the last “few days and weeks” to mediators to be passed on to Hamas interlocutors, but the terrorist group has failed to act on it to date, said the official.

The October ceasefire signed in Egypt by Israel and Hamas stipulated the return of all the hostages and bodies being held in Gaza during the first stage of the agreement.

“Islamic Jihad took him, and inside Islamic Jihad, there is a group of people who know where Ran is,” the official said. “Hamas knows how to put the pressure on Islamic Jihad, and they are not doing it.”

The terrorist groups have used delay tactics—including the weather and falsely asserting that the persons of interest identified by Israeli intelligence are dead—to stall for time.

“We will know if the efforts are 100%,” the official said during a Tel Aviv briefing for international journalists. “And it is not 100%. It is far from 100%.”

The official, who said he was “not satisfied” with the response he has received, said that there was a “strong linkage” between the release of the final hostage and moving on to the next stage of the Gaza ceasefire agreement, but that it was up to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu how to proceed.

Netanyahu spoke to Gvili’s parents, Tali and Itzik Gvili, on Wednesday evening, telling them that the return of their son’s remains is a top priority, according to a statement from his office.

Gvili’s mother was flying back to the United States on Wednesday to maintain pressure on the authorities not to move forward to the next stage of the ceasefire until his body is released.

Earlier this month, Gvili’s parents met with President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in Palm Beach, Florida, having joined Netanyahu’s official entourage.

“Both [Netanyahu] and Trump are fully committed to bringing Rani home,” the official said.

In a post announcing Gaza’s new technocratic government, Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff wrote on Wednesday that the United States expects Hamas to immediately return the final Israeli hostage as part of its obligations under the deal, noting that “failure to do so will bring serious consequences.”

Gvili, a 24-year-old Israeli police officer, fought off dozens of terrorists at the entrance to a kibbutz in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, even though he was injured, until he ran out of ammunition and was killed. His body was taken and then paraded through the streets of Gaza. Hours earlier, he had helped to save scores of people fleeing from the Supernova music festival.

The official noted in the briefing that the Oct. 7 terrorists had written orders to bring organs—including eyes, liver, kidneys, hearts, hands and legs—back to Gaza to serve as “assets,” some of which they are still holding. They also had written instructions to remove victims’ “trousers and underpants,” said the official, explaining that this was an implicit instruction to rape and sexually assault their victims.

“This is the type of enemy we are dealing with,” he said. “It is a real horror.”

Hamas to be disarmed “one way or another”

The official told JNS that the disarming of Hamas as stipulated by the ceasefire agreement is going to happen “one way or another,” and that it was just a question of who was going to do it.

“I am not sure in which way, but they will be disarmed one way or another; otherwise, we will have to do it ourselves,” he said.

Source: JNS