‘We Worked Through 800 Graves’: Inside the Harrowing Overnight Operation To Recover Slain Israeli Hostage Ran Gvili

More than 150 personnel were involved in the operation to recover the body of slain Israeli hostage Ran Gvili from a cemetery in northern Gaza, which required the exhumation of around 800 graves. Speaking to New York Sun on condition of anonymity, IDF Lieutenant Colonel E., who led the operation, explained how combat soldiers, rescue forces, dental experts and lab workers all worked together on the ground in a secured area near a cemetery in Shejaiya, one of largest neighborhoods of Gaza City, to recover Mr. Gvili’s body. First, Lieutenant Colonel E. said, a team of specialists go through the bodies to pinpoint those that don’t fit the description of Mr. Gvili, a 24-year-old man. This means that women and children were automatically excluded, easing the process of identification. Then, “heavy mechanical vehicles” helped extract all the dead bodies from the cemetery in the operation dubbed “Courageous Heart.”“And it was my soldiers’ job to take the bodies out and give each one a number. The doctors then took photographs of each one of the bodies which went online to a central command that we were building at the premises,” said the Lieutenant Colonel, who commands more than 400 soldiers in a search and rescue battalion in the IDF’s Southern Command. The 800 bodies were then laid on the ground so that dental experts could examine them. When two sets of dental experts agreed that there was a match, soldiers took the body to an on-site lab where further forensic examination was done, such as X-rays.“Some of the bodies that we could not verify at the field were sent to a DNA examination back in Israel, because this is something that you cannot do at the field,” he said. After checking around 250 bodies, experts finally identified Mr. Gvili’s body. A highly emotional moment for everyone on site. “Suddenly I see her hands shaking and her eyes turn red, tearing up. She looked at me, and I saw a little smile, and I understood that this is it. It’s actually happening. Then the commander of the intelligence unit came to me, and said ‘we’re now calling the family’,” Lieutenant Colonel E. recalled. “We started the operation on Sunday at about 4:00 PM and we didn’t stop until Monday at about 2:00 pm when we got the final result. We were protected by two infantry battalions and one battalion that surrounded us. We were working 24 hours straight, all night long, extracting the bodies and doing all the checks. This operation could have easily lasted for two weeks because of the amount of bodies we had to go through,” he added. Lieutenant Colonel E. also revealed that the team came under fire during the operation, which was protected by the elite infantry Alexandroni Brigade: “We were attacked during the operation. I can’t specify how, but something happened.”The 400-man rescue team rescued the bodies of more than 650 soldiers and civilians on October 7 and more than 350 soldiers who fell in Gaza as well as bodies of hostages. “For us, they are not just dead bodies. They are holy souls and we have the honour to help save them,” Lieutenant Colonel E. said. With Mr. Gvili’s body returned to Israel, there are no more hostages in Gaza for the first time since 2014. A convoy escorted his body from the Shura military base to his hometown of Meitar on Wednesday where he was laid to rest.

‘We Worked Through 800 Graves’: Inside the Harrowing Overnight Operation To Recover Slain Israeli Hostage Ran Gvili

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