Over the past few weeks, Israeli forces carried out covert missions, arresting terrorists and interrogating them in Israel, in an effort to locate the body of the last hostage, Ran Gvili. From the interrogations, partial information was obtained that helped narrow the search area.
Israeli officials estimate that Gvili was already buried during the first weeks of the war. A defense official estimated that the Islamic Jihad terrorists who buried him may not have known that he was a member of the Israeli security forces.
The ground operation to locate the body was planned a while ago, but was delayed several times due to constraints of the political echelon. It was launched yesterday in a cemetery in the outskirts of the Shuja'iyya neighborhood in northern Gaza.
The cemetery was split into smaller sections in advance, and every IDF engineering crew, accompanied by dentists and members of the Military Rabbinate, was assigned to a different section.
All crews worked simultaneously to expedite the process and end the search within hours. Over 200 graves were inspected in an area where the intelligence indicated that there was a higher chance of finding the body.
Among those to participate in the search was singer, actor, and IDF reservist Idan Amedi, who was wounded during the war.