The Day After: Building Israel’s Future When the Last Hostage Comes Home

January 26th, 2026 will be remembered as a painful and defining day in Israeli history. On the eve of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the final hostage from Gaza was returned. Ran Givli z”l was finally brought home, not alive, but home nonetheless. With his identification and burial, the yellow ribbons, pins, bracelets, and tags that marked more than 830 days of collective anguish can at last be removed. They should never have been needed in the first place, and God willing, never again.

The emotions of that day were impossible to separate. Relief that he was no longer lost. Grief that he did not survive. Pride in a nation that never stopped fighting to bring its people home. Israel does not abandon its own. That principle is not a slogan. It is a national instinct, written deep into Jewish history and reinforced by the scars of the twentieth century.

For more than two years, the entire country lived with the hostages in mind. Every family dinner, every public event, every military decision was framed by their absence. Now that the last name has been returned to the soil of Israel, the nation stands at a crossroads. Mourning does not end. Memory does not fade. But the time has come to build.

Israel must now shift its collective focus from survival mode to strategic renewal. That does not mean lowering........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)