Ahead of the funeral of Sgt. First Class Ran Gvili, a ceremony was held Wednesday morning at the Shura base near Ramla, after which a police convoy set out to escort the coffin of the last hostage returned from Gaza to Meitar, where he will be buried. His father, Itzik Gvili, recited Kaddish over the coffin, saluted and said, “Here, your friends are taking you.” Gvili’s mother, Talik, stepped outside the base to embrace those who came to honor the family.
The funeral procession was scheduled to begin at 10:30 a.m., traveling to Meitar via Route 431, joining Route 6 at the Nesherim interchange and later continuing on Route 60. The main eulogies were set for 12:30 p.m. at a field near the community sports center in Meitar. Burial was scheduled for 2:30 p.m. at the cemetery, in a limited ceremony without media.
The funeral procession
(Video: Shilo Fried, GPO)
At 6:30 a.m., a police convoy escorted the Gvili family from Meitar to the Shura base. The convoy included the national traffic police motorcycle unit, patrol cars and motorcycles from the Southern District’s Sahar division. President Isaac Herzog and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are among those expected to deliver eulogies.
Police warned of significant traffic congestion on Route 60 toward Meitar. Vehicle entry to the community will be permitted only to residents with identification and authorized vehicles. Gates to the eulogy venue were to open at 10:30 a.m., with shuttle service operating from the parking area at Meitar’s entrance. Attendance at the venue is limited to about 2,000 people for safety reasons, and no additional entry will be allowed once capacity is reached.
Gvili’s aunt, Harel Plahchinski, told ynet that the family’s emotions are mixed. “On one hand, you’re relieved we’ve finally reached the end of this journey, and on the other, today we are burying Rani,” she said. “For us it’s very hard. Rani is the heart of the family. We’re overwhelmed by the scale of the funeral, the arrangements, the security, the loss of intimacy.”
She said Gvili has become a public figure. “He’s known everywhere, but in the end, Rani is ours. That duality is difficult. I feel like I’m living in a movie, and it’s not a good one.”
Gvili served as a fighter in the Yassam Negev unit in the Southern District. On October 7, he went into battle despite being injured with a broken shoulder following a motorcycle accident and was due to undergo surgery. He managed to save dozens of people from the music festival near Re’im before he was killed and his body was taken hostage near Kibbutz Alumim. He became known as “Rani, the defender of Alumim.”
On Monday, 843 days after the October 7 attack, Gvili’s remains were located in a Palestinian cemetery in eastern Gaza City. The recovery operation, dubbed “Brave Heart,” was complex and involved multiple forces conducting searches and identification. During the operation, the bodies of 250 Palestinians were examined until Gvili was identified by the police uniform he was wearing and the shoes he had on the day he was killed.
First published: 10:36, 01.28.26