{"id":195887,"date":"2025-12-21T04:24:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T04:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/195887\/"},"modified":"2025-12-21T04:24:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T04:24:10","slug":"vigil-held-for-last-fallen-hostage-as-families-urge-his-return-call-for-unity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/195887\/","title":{"rendered":"Vigil held for last fallen hostage as families urge his return, call for unity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hundreds gathered Saturday evening in the southern town of Meitar for a vigil demanding the return of Ran Gvili, the last hostage in Hamas captivity, whose body has not yet been recovered.<\/p>\n

Among those attending were his mother, Talik Gvili<\/a>, and Iris Haim and Tzvika Mor, the parents of former hostages who were either rescued or killed in earlier stages of the war.<\/p>\n

3 View gallery <\/p>\n

\"\u05e2\u05e6\u05e8\u05ea<\/a>\"\u05e2\u05e6\u05e8\u05ea<\/p>\n

Vigil demanding the return of Ran Gvili in Meitar <\/p>\n

(Photo: Herzl Yossef)<\/p>\n

\u201cThank you all for coming\u2014you are our strength,\u201d said Gvili\u2019s mother, addressing the crowd. \u201cEven the head of military intelligence told us: keep his name out there, say it as often as possible. We hope that by next week, we won\u2019t need to be here again. We are praying for a miracle.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

3 View gallery <\/p>\n

\"\u05e2\u05e6\u05e8\u05ea<\/a>\"\u05e2\u05e6\u05e8\u05ea<\/p>\n

Hanukkah menorah candlelighting at the vigil <\/p>\n

(Photo: Herzl Yossef)<\/p>\n

\u201cI had written something, but I\u2019m just going to speak freely,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen I look at the seven candles burning, it brings me back to Hanukkah. On the eighth day, my Yotam was killed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Haim recalled her first encounter with the Gvili family at the beginning of the war. \u201cThere was an immediate bond. Around 50 days into the war, we still didn\u2019t understand what was happening. We stepped out of the race on day 70, when Yotam was killed. But I believe Yotam and Rani left us a mission. We have the strength not only to bring Rani home, but to go beyond that.\u201d<\/p>\n

She posed a difficult question to the audience: \u201cWhy is Rani the last one? I have an answer, though I don\u2019t know if it\u2019ll resonate. I think it\u2019s not by chance. Look how many people came out to Meitar, this isn\u2019t Hostage Square in Tel Aviv.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re taking responsibility,\u201d she concluded. \u201cEveryone who was murdered, kidnapped or killed because of October 7 leaves behind a message: we must change. What\u2019s the next chapter for Israeli society? To stand together, look each other in the eye and stop defining one another by politics. We are one people. October 7 happened to all of us. We cannot move forward until we write the next chapter in how we live together, and we can\u2019t start that chapter until Rani comes home.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hundreds gathered Saturday evening in the southern town of Meitar for a vigil demanding the return of Ran…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":195888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-195887","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}