Newsletter
Newsletter Support JNS

WATCH: Tel Aviv hostage clock halted after 843 days

Hostage clock in Tel Aviv’s Hostages’ Square is stopped after 843 days with return of final captive’s remains from Gaza, closing a painful chapter.

Israelis gather at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv during a clock-stopping ceremony following the return of the body of the last hostage, Ran Gvili, from Hamas captivity, Jan. 27, 2026. Photo by Chaim Goldberg/Flash90.
Israelis gather at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv during a clock-stopping ceremony following the return of the body of the last hostage, Ran Gvili, from Hamas captivity, Jan. 27, 2026. Photo by Chaim Goldberg/Flash90.

Families of hostages and their supporters gathered on Tuesday evening in central Tel Aviv as the iconic hostage clock was stopped after counting every second that captives were held by Palestinian terrorists in Gaza since the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre.

The digital display in the square by the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, long known as Hostages’ Square, was halted at 843 days, 12 hours, 5 minutes and 59 seconds during a ceremony marking the return of the last Israeli captive.

On Monday, Israeli forces recovered the remains of Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, 24, whose body was located in a Gaza City cemetery.

See more from JNS Staff
“We’re probably the only city in the state and in the country that raised the Israeli flag on our City Hall, next to our state flag, next to the American flag, and it stayed there for four months,” the mayor-elect told JNS.
The faction is “an extension” of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force and is “not a Lebanese resistance movement,” a State Department official said.
“These maniacs are on the ropes, and these historic measures will cripple them and their ability to project terror worldwide,” said the U.S. president.
The Israeli premier warned Ankara against military entrenchment south of Aleppo following an attack on the Abu al-Duhur airbase early Tuesday morning.