The Israel Defense Forces confirmed on Sunday evening that it was searching for the remains of Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, the last remaining hostage held in the Gaza Strip, on the Israeli side of the ceasefire line in the enclave’s north.

Israel has resisted moving forward with phase 2 of US President Donald Trump’s peace plan for Gaza — including reopening the Rafah Crossing between the Strip and Egypt — before Gvili’s body has been returned. Hamas has maintained that it does not know the exact location of his remains and has made attempts to search.

The search operation began over the weekend, based on intelligence information that the body was buried at a Muslim cemetery in eastern Gaza City, near the neighborhoods of Shejaiya, Daraj, and Tuffah.

Troops and forensic experts, including dentists, were operating in the area in an attempt to locate and identify Gvili’s remains and bring them back to Israel for burial, according to the army.

The search was taking place on the Israeli side of the Yellow Line, though some forces were deployed over it, on the Hamas side, for security purposes, military officials said.

The intelligence on Gvili’s body possibly being buried at the cemetery had been known to the IDF for a while, though recently the information was made clearer, both following IDF operations and information provided by Hamas to Israel via mediators.

The terror group said in a statement earlier Sunday that the IDF was searching for Gvili’s remains based on information that it had provided to mediators.

“We affirm that we have conveyed to the........

© The Times of Israel