President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that “we think we know” the location of the body of Israel Police Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, the last Israeli hostage in Gaza.
“Got all 20 living hostages returned to their families. ... We got the 28 [deceased] hostages. They have one left that we think we know where it is. Amazing. It looked like we weren’t going to get anywhere near that, now they’ve gotten it almost,” said Trump.
Gvili’s mother, Talik, and father, Itzik, responded to Trump’s remarks, saying that his “statements prove what we’ve been saying for three months—Hamas knows exactly where our son is and is deliberately and knowingly violating President Trump’s framework and the agreement for the return of all the hostages.”
They continued: “Now the responsibility lies with the government of Israel and the American administration to use all their weight to ensure that Hamas fulfills its part of the agreement, or that sanctions be imposed on it.”
According to Israeli authorities, Gvili, 24, died from wounds suffered while battling terrorists at the entrance to Kibbutz Alumim during the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. He left his home to fight despite a broken shoulder after hearing the news of the mass infiltration.
The last image of him alive shows him on a motorbike being driven off by terrorists, with Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City in the background.
The final 20 living hostages were freed on Oct. 13, and the bodies of deceased captives were sporadically returned over the following months.
Gvili has yet to come home.
“If we didn’t do it, most of those people would have been dead,” Trump said on Tuesday. “I don’t know if that’s covered properly, but you know, the 20 [living returned hostages] is great. They were the last ones. I always said the last 20 are going to be hard, but we got them, and we got close to 28 of the bodies of the dead.
“And to those parents, that was just as important as getting their son back alive. They were almost even more intent on getting—they knew their son was dead—they wanted to get the body and got him back,” added Trump.
