by Mike Wagenheim
“They say now the most important thing for them is to bring Rani [home]. On this, we got a promise from all of them,” Itzik Gvili, father of Ran, told JNS.
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A poster supporting Ran Gvili sits in Hostages
Square as the country waits for his return. Dec. 5, 2025. Credit: Matt
Kaminsky/JNS |
Trump administration officials pledged not to move to the second phase of the Gaza peace plan until the final remaining hostage, Ran Gvili, is returned, according to Gvili’s father.
Itzik Gvili spoke to JNS on Tuesday, a day after he and his family met with President Donald Trump, along with other high-ranking officials, in Florida in conjunction with the visit of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“It’s very exciting to meet the strongest guy in the world,” Itzik said of Trump. “He was so, so nice to us, very warm. He knows everything about Rani, and he promised us he will do everything he can to bring Rani home.”
The Gvili family made the trip in order to pressure the administration not to advance to the second phase of U.S. President Donald Trump’s peace plan.
According to Israeli authorities, Israel Police Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, 24, lost his life from wounds suffered battling terrorists at the entrance to Kibbutz Alumim during the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. He jumped into battle with a broken shoulder after hearing the news of the mass infiltration.
The last image of him alive shows him on a motorbike driven off by terrorists, with Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City in the background.
The 20 remaining living hostages still held captive as the most recent ceasefire began were freed on Oct. 13, and the bodies of deceased hostages have been sporadically returned since that date. Gvili has yet to come home, and his family is still expressing doubts about his fate in the absence of conclusive evidence of his death.
Phase one is only set to complete with the return of all hostages, living and dead. Phase two of the U.S.-drafted plan focuses on Hamas’s disarmament, Israeli military withdrawal, the establishment of a transitional technocratic government and the beginning of Gaza’s reconstruction.
“We talked with all of them, and all of them promised us to do everything to bring Ran home before step two,” Itzik Gvili told JNS.
“They will say it will take time. They will not do it now,” he said regarding moving to the next phase of the ceasefire. “They say now the most important thing for them is to bring Rani [home]. On this, we got a promise from all of them.”
The Gvili family met on Monday morning with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Trump’s Special Envoy for Peace Missions Steve Witkoff and Trump Senior Adviser Jared Kushner.
“This is what we want to hear. We want to hear ‘Don’t forget Rani. Don’t build on Rani in Gaza.’ And they promised us, ‘We’re not going to do nothing. We don’t go to build. We don’t go to do things before they bring Rani, and they can’t handle this war if Rani is not home,” Itzik told JNS.
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group is reportedly in possession of Ran Gvili’s body.
“We trust Trump, we trust Bibi, we trust Kushner, we trust Witkoff, all of them, and we feel like all of them are working together,” said Itzik. “For us, it’s only to pray for.”
He said the family fears sharing the fate of the family of Israeli Air Force Capt. Ron Arad, who was downed during a mission in Lebanon in 1986, captured and never returned, or the family of Lt. Hadar Goldin, whose lifeless body was dragged into a Hamas tunnel in the 2014 war, and was only returned to Israel last month.
“This is the point we are making here in Miami, in Mar-a-Lago. That we must talk, because we don’t know what’s going to be in two weeks and three weeks,” Itzik told JNS. “Now, of course, everyone talks about Rani, but you know what’s going on in Israel, and the news changes every week, every hour.”
Mike Wagenheim
Source: https://www.jns.org/trump-admin-pledged-no-phase-2-in-gaza-until-his-sons-return-says-father-of-last-gaza-hostage/
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