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<\/a><\/p>\nA billboard in Times Square calls for the release of Ran Gvili, the last remaining hostage in Gaza. (Screenshot)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Gvili, a 24-year-old police officer who was killed defending Kibbutz Alumim during Hamas\u2019 Oct. 7, 2023 attacks, was one of roughly 250 hostages taken into Gaza.<\/p>\n
The billboard, which is part of an effort led by the Israeli Consulate in New York and Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa\u2019ar, comes nearly two months after all 20 living hostages were returned to Israel as part of a U.S.-brokered ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.<\/p>\n
Since then, the remaining deceased hostages in Gaza have been returned intermittently, including the remains of Thai agricultural worker Sudthisak Rinthalak last week, in a slow process that has extended tensions between Israel and Hamas.<\/p>\n
Last month, the American Jewish Committee launched its own billboard campaign in Times Square that featured a montage of the remaining hostages in Gaza. Today, the display only features Gvili.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe nightmare isn\u2019t over,\u201d the AJC\u2019s billboard reads, according to a video the group posted on Youtube Tuesday, followed by a photo of Gvili\u2019s mother holding a hostage poster of him with the caption, \u201cA family incomplete.\u201d<\/p>\n
Later in the slideshow, the screen displays a photo of Gvili with the caption, \u201cOver two years later, Hamas still holds Ran hostage in Gaza,\u201d before ending with the message, \u201cBring Ran home now.\u201d<\/p>\n
As the number of hostages has dwindled and the weekly hostage rallies have come to a close, Gvili\u2019s parents have become the only hostage family members in the public eye.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re at the last stretch and we have to be strong, for Rani, for us, and for Israel. Without Rani, our country can\u2019t heal,\u201d Gvili\u2019s mother, Talik, told Reuters on Monday.<\/p>\n
Once Gvili is returned, the ceasefire plan is supposed to move into its second phase as laid out in a plan devised by President Donald Trump this fall.<\/p>\n
Trump has said phase two is imminent. But while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters Sunday he expects the plan to move into its second phase \u201cvery shortly,\u201d Hamas political bureau member Husam Badran said on Tuesday that Israel had not yet honored its part of the deal, pointing to the continued closure of the Rafah crossing with Egypt. (Israel has said the crossing will open soon to allow Palestinians to exit Gaza.)<\/p>\n
Both Israel and Hamas would lose authority in Gaza during the next phase of Trump\u2019s plan, which would establish a \u201cBoard of Peace\u201d helmed by Trump to make decisions about Gaza\u2019s future. It is expected that the Palestinian Authority will play a role in the board, which Israeli officials have said they oppose, and Hamas will face renewed pressure to disarm, which it does not want to do.<\/p>\n
Some have speculated that Hamas knows the location of Gvili\u2019s remains but has not released them to avoid bringing the hostage-release phase of the ceasefire to an end. That leaves him and his story of Oct. 7 heroism in the public eye for longer.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will not forget for a single moment Ran Gvili, an Israeli hero. Even with an injured shoulder, Ran went out to defend and repel the Hamas monsters who invaded Israel on October 7, 2023,\u201d said Ofir Akunis, the consul general of Israel in New York, in a statement about the Times Square billboard. \u201cIsrael demands that Hamas fully complete Phase A before we proceed to the beginning of Phase B of President Trump\u2019s plan.\u201d<\/p>\n