First In, Last Out

T

he recovery of the body of Ran Gvili Hy”d and his return to Israel for burial b’kever Yisrael was one of those moments that reminded me how fortunate I am to have built my life with my wife in Israel. There is no other country where one will ever find oneself rejoicing with eight million fellow Jews.

We are a long, long way from the level of k’ish echad b’lev echad that preceded Har Sinai. Still, the joy of the return of the final Israeli captive was shared by almost the entire Jewish population of Israel.

By the time Ran Gvili’s body was identified, 843 days had passed since October 7, during most of which hundreds of Jews were held captive by Hamas, some alive and some murdered. But it has been even longer since there were no Israelis held captive — since 2014, or 4,208 days to be precise.

The extraordinary efforts that went into securing Ran Gvili’s return reflect the importance the country attaches to returning captives, whether dead or alive. For weeks, much of the news has been focused on the search for Gvili and rumors about where he might have been buried. That information, it seems, was obtained from an Islamic Jihad operative, who was captured by Israeli forces with the intent of extracting the necessary information from him, and not from Hamas, which had committed to the return of all hostages as the first stage of President Trump’s Gaza deal.