JERUSALEM\u00a0\u2014\u00a0The remains of the final hostage in Gaza have been recovered, Israel\u2019s military said Monday, clearing the way for the next phase of the ceasefire that paused the Israel-Hamas war.<\/p>\n
The announcement that the remains of Ran Gvili had been found and identified came a day after Israel\u2019s government said the military was conducting a \u201clarge-scale operation\u201d in a cemetery in northern Gaza to locate them.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it \u201can incredible achievement\u201d for Israel and its soldiers, telling Israeli media that \u201cI promised we would bring everyone home and we have brought everyone home.\u201d He said Gvili, who was killed during the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023, that sparked the war, was among the first to be taken into Gaza.<\/p>\n
The return of all remaining hostages, living or dead, has been a key part of the Gaza ceasefire\u2019s first phase, and Gvili\u2019s family had urged Israel\u2019s government not to enter the second phase until his remains were recovered and returned.<\/p>\n
Netanyahu\u2019s office said Sunday that Israel would open the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, which Palestinians see as their lifeline to the world, once the search for Gvili was finished. It has been largely shut since May 2024, except for a small period in early 2025.<\/p>\n
Israel and Hamas had been under pressure from ceasefire mediators including Washington to move into the second phase of the U.S.-brokered truce, which took effect on Oct. 10.<\/p>\n
Israel had repeatedly accused Hamas of dragging its feet in the recovery of the final hostage. Hamas said it had provided all the information it had about Gvili\u2019s remains, and accused Israel of obstructing efforts to search for them in areas of Gaza under Israeli military control.<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s military had said the large-scale operation to locate Gvili\u2019s remains was \u201cin the area of the Yellow Line\u201d that divides the territory.<\/p>\n
The Oct. 7, 2023 attack killed about 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage. Gvili, a 24-year-old police officer known affectionately as \u201cRani,\u201d was killed while fighting Hamas militants.<\/p>\n
Before Gvili\u2019s remains were recovered, 20 living hostages and the remains of 27 others had been returned to Israel since the ceasefire, most recently in early December. Israel in exchange has released the bodies of hundreds Palestinians to Gaza.<\/p>\n
The next phase of the 20-point ceasefire plan has called for creating an international stabilization force, forming a technocratic Palestinian government and disarming Hamas.<\/p>\n
Palestinians killed in Gaza<\/p>\n
Israeli forces on Monday fatally shot a man in Gaza City\u2019s Tuffah neighborhood, according to Shifa Hospital, which received the body. The man was close to an area where the military has launched the search operation for Gvili, the hospital said.<\/p>\n
Another man was killed in the eastern side of Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital, which received his body. The circumstances of his death were not immediately clear.<\/p>\n
More than 480 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire since Oct. 10, according to Gaza\u2019s Health Ministry. The ministry, which is part of the Hamas-led government, maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts.<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s top court considers petition to open Gaza for international journalists<\/p>\n
The Foreign Press Association on Monday asked Israel\u2019s Supreme Court to allow journalists to enter Gaza freely and independently. <\/p>\n
The FPA, which represents dozens of global news organizations, has been fighting for more than two years for independent media access to Gaza. Israel has barred reporters from entering Gaza independently since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas, which triggered the war, saying entry could put both journalists and soldiers at risk. <\/p>\n
The army has offered journalists brief, occasional visits under strict military supervision. <\/p>\n
FPA lawyers told the three judge panel that the restrictions are not justified and that with aid workers moving in and out of Gaza, journalists should be allowed in as well. They also said the tightly controlled embeds with the military are no substitute for independent access. The judges are expected to rule in the coming days.<\/p>\n
Frankel and Magdy write for the Associated Press. Magdy reported from Cairo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JERUSALEM\u00a0\u2014\u00a0The remains of the final hostage in Gaza have been recovered, Israel\u2019s military said Monday, clearing the way…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":258504,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[56,136523,50,234,51,85,46,61,88841,2899,6048,43,136524,31135,2200,96174,56462],"class_list":["post-258503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-ceasefire","tag-final-hostage","tag-gaza","tag-government","tag-hamas","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-israel-hamas-war","tag-journalist","tag-military","tag-monday","tag-news","tag-next-phase","tag-oct","tag-palestinians","tag-ran-gvili","tag-remain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258503","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=258503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}