HY’D: Final Hostage Is Identified, Body Returned To Israel

The body of the last hostage held in the Strip, Master Sgt. Ran Gvili was identified on the ground by Israeli forensic experts, according to the military.

The IDF began exhuming hundreds of bodies at a Muslim cemetery in eastern Gaza City over the weekend, and until today, tested around 250 of them for a potential match to Gvili.

A few hours ago, dentists deployed to the cemetery were able to confirm that the dental structure of one body matched Gvili’s. In addition, fingerprints and other tests were carried out to confirm the identity, according to the military.

Gvili’s body is now being brought back to Israel for burial.

The IDF says it will be returning all of the other exhumed bodies to their graves and cleaning up the cemetery, out of respect for the dead.

With the recovery of Master Sgt. Ran Gvili’s body from Gaza, the IDF discloses its intelligence assessments regarding where the slain police officer’s remains were believed to have been held.

The army says that the intelligence indicating Gvili was buried at the cemetery in eastern Gaza City had been known for a while, though recently the information was made clearer, both following intelligence operations and information confirmed by Hamas to Israel via mediators.

Last week, new information was received by the IDF that strengthened its assessments that Gvili was buried at the cemetery in eastern Gaza City. A search operation began over the weekend, and today his body was found.

The search took place on the Israeli side of the Yellow Line, though some forces were deployed over it, on the Hamas side, for security purposes, military officials say.

Another intelligence lead that the IDF had regarding Gvili’s body was that the slain hostage was buried in a tunnel around a kilometer from the cemetery, also on the Israeli side of the Yellow Line.

Combat engineers dug down into the tunnel and scanned it, although ultimately nothing was found.

Other leads included the possibility that Gvili was buried at Shifa Hospital or another cemetery in Gaza City. However, both sites are on the Hamas side of the ceasefire line, and therefore no searches took place there.