“I hope Ran won't become a symbol for terrorists like Hadar Goldin,” Talik Gvili said Sunday in an interview with the Ynet studio. Gvili is the mother of Staff Sgt. Ran Gvili, one of three fallen hostages whose bodies remain in Hamas captivity. Speaking with visible concern, she said she hopes “this ends as soon as possible” and that her son will finally be brought home.
The Gvili family is among the three still waiting for the return of relatives abducted on October 7. Talik described their daily routine as “simply surreal” and said the family is holding on to hope. She noted that, despite being among the last families waiting, they are receiving regular updates. “We get everything we need from the Hostages and Missing Families Headquarters. Meeting the political leadership is more complicated, but that does not mean it hasn’t happened. I met with the prime minister at least seven or eight times.”
She said the family knows “more or less” where Ran is being held but understands the complexity. “There are situations that do not depend on us or on the state but on the specific circumstances of each hostage. It is not simple. We hope to receive new information and good news soon. I stay optimistic.”
Gvili thanked the Israeli public for its support. “I need to say a huge thank-you. We truly feel embraced. It does not matter what anyone’s political opinion is. We feel enormous support everywhere we go. Please do not stop.”
Families respond to Strock: Returning the hostages is the purpose of the war
The Hostages’ Families Forum sharply criticized remarks made by Minister Orit Strock, who said during a cabinet meeting that “we did not go to war to return hostages.” The forum said she “exposed a painful truth: for more than two years the government has not defined the return of the hostages as a war objective.”
“This alone deserves to be a central chapter in the future state commission of inquiry,” the forum said, calling the October 7 failures “the most severe in the state’s history.”
The forum added that the government must be reminded that returning the hostages “was and remains the goal, morally and publicly.” They said, “The return of our brothers from captivity is an Israeli, Jewish and moral imperative. A nation that does not bring its sons home has no right to exist. Solidarity is a foundational value of Israeli society.”
They highlighted the cases of the three remaining fallen hostages: Ran Gvili, who “fell in combat after fighting bravely and saving dozens, if not hundreds, of civilians”; Dror Or, murdered with his wife in Kibbutz Be’eri and kidnapped to Gaza with two of his children, who were left orphaned; and Sutthisak Rintalak, a Thai citizen murdered and abducted while visiting friends near Be’eri. “They were kidnapped while believing they were protected by the IDF and the state. It is the state’s highest duty to bring them back. We will not rest or stay silent. We will not abandon any hostage.”
Strock’s remarks were made during a cabinet meeting on establishing a state commission of inquiry into the October 7 attack. When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he did not know when the cease-fire would end because “we still have three hostages to bring back,” Strock replied, “We did not go to war to return hostages.”