The Israeli army announced that it recovered the body of police officer Ran Gvili, the last remaining hostage in .
The return of all the living and the dead from Gaza completes a key condition of the initial phase of the US president’s plan to end the war in Gaza, and this development formally opens the second phase of the truce, with what this entails for the commitments undertaken by both Israel and Hamas to observe it.
How did Netanyahu comment on the development?
Speaking to the media in the Knesset, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the return of the body of Master Sergeant Ran Gvili “is an extraordinary achievement for Israel.”
“We promised — and I personally promised — to bring them all back, and we brought them all back,” he said, “down to the last one.”
“Ran is a hero of Israel. First in, last out. And now he’s back,” Netanyahu added.
How did they find Gvili’s body?
According to the Israeli army, the body of the last hostage held in the Gaza Strip was identified on the spot by Israeli medical examiners.
Over the weekend, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) began exhuming hundreds of bodies from a Muslim cemetery in eastern Gaza City and examined about 250 of them for possible identification with Gvili.
Hours before the announcement, dentists deployed to the scene were able to confirm that the dental structure of one body matched that of Gwili. At the same time, fingerprint checks and other tests were carried out to definitively confirm his identity, according to the army.
The Israeli army also announced that all remaining exhumed bodies would be returned to their graves and that the cemetery would be restored, “out of respect for the dead.”
