JERUSALEM — There were hundreds, then dozens, and then just a few. Now there’s one Israeli hostage left in Gaza: Ran Gvili.

Gvili, a 24-year-old police officer known affectionately as “Rani,” was killed while fighting Hamas militants during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war. After a series of ceasefire-mandated exchanges of hostages for Palestinians held by Israel, Gvili’s body still has not been recovered.

His remains are somewhere in Gaza. On Thursday, as Israel woke to the news that remains militants returned the previous day belonged to another hostage, the country mourned Gvili as a hero who died fighting to save a kibbutz that was not his own.

“The first to go, the last to leave,” his mother, Talik Gvili, wrote on Facebook Thursday. “We won’t stop until you come back

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