By Andrew Adler
Community Editor
Trees on the campus of the Trager Family JCC bearing blue ribbons in solidarity with those kidnapped from Israel on Oct. 7 and now held hostage (Photo by Matt Golden)
It was mid-morning on Monday, January 26, 2026 when news broke that the Israel Defense Forces had located and positively identified the remains of Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, the last hostage held in Gaza.
“After completing the identification process by the National Center for Forensic Medicine in cooperation with the Israel Police and the Military Rabbinate, IDF representatives informed the family of the hostage, the late Ran Gvili, that their loved one had been identified,” the IDF said in a statement. “With this, all of the abductees from the Gaza Strip have been returned.”
The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu commented that Gvili’s return “closes the circle.”
But does it?
We can all express relief that all 255 hostages – the living and the dead – have now emerged from the dark, dank tunnels of Gaza and have been restored to Israel. Two years, three months and 19 days after Gvili gave his life defending Kibbutz Alumim during the Hamas-precipitated attack of October 7, 2023, a page in the fraught history of this region has been turned.
Perhaps it’s more accurate to say that this news, so long awaited, closes “a” circle. Whether it closes “the” circle, however, is far less evident. There is so much left to accomplish before any of us – whether in Israel or anywhere else, in or out of government, Jewish or Gentile, can say that we have achieved genuine closure.
I remember the day, not so long ago, that ribbons were tied around trees lining a road leading to the Trager Family JCC. They went up shortly after October 7 and have remained there in all the days since, testament to our collective determination to stand with those in captivity. I’ve looked at them each morning I drive in to work – their bright blue hues now somewhat faded but still bathed in color – and wondered when they will finally be taken down.
October 7 itself, though, has scarcely faded. Its immediate shock may have dissipated, but its aftershocks continue to work their insidious energies on all of us. Certainly, the families of those hostages who did not survive will never find true “closure,” no matter how often that exhausted phrase is trotted out. They will forever bear the scars of their loved ones’ passing. Memory brings solace, but it can also carry despair.
Then there is the broader circle, the geo-political roundabout: what happens next in Israel and Gaza. Phase One of the “Day After” has been completed – a ceasefire is holding, more or less, anyway – so we are at the juncture of setting Phase Two in motion.
President Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace,” which will ostensibly oversee the reconstruction of the decimated Strip, is being positioned to implement United Nations Security Council Resolution 2803. Its very name reflects an ideal steeped in (depending on one’s perspective) naïveté or pretension, and at this juncture it’s unclear how many Western nations will sign on. Indeed, even under the most optimistic scenarios, the sheer scale of its assigned task is daunting.
So much of what lies ahead is either uncertain or unknowable. This coming October 27, Israel will hold elections to determine the 120 members of what will be the 26th Knesset. Netanyahu most likely will seek to retain authority as Prime Minister, though the mood of the voting public, coupled with intrinsic vagaries of Israeli coalition politics, make his prospects for success murky at best. There’s also the outcome of his trial on corruption charges, an ongoing legal process bordering on the interminable.
Few things are certain in the Middle East except for uncertainty. The forces bent on destroying Israel may be diminished in their ability to wreak that destruction, but they have hardly been decisively incapacitated. Hamas, which Netanyahu vowed to utterly obliterate, has reemerged as Gaza’s internal order-keeper – albeit grounded in the renewed murdering of its own people. Since its authority lies in fear, and its fear is grounded in its weaponry, it’s difficult to imagine that Hamas will lay down its arms as Phase Two requires.
Peace, in other words, is at best a tenuous reality. Still, aspiration is better than resignation. Recognizing that at any instant the Middle East can explode, figuratively and literally, we can at least retain a measure of pragmatic ambition.
Meanwhile, today – January 26, 2026 – is a day for happiness, even if it must be tempered by a degree of heartache. Ran Gvili has been restored to his immediate family, and to all of us, the extended family of Jews and compassionate humankind.
Now we can take down those last remaining ribbons. Pray they never need to be put up again.
Andrew Adler is Managing Editor of Community.