Maj. Gen. (res.) Nitzan Alon, who served as the military’s point man on hostage negotiations since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, onslaught, said that the terror group is facing “objective” difficulties locating the body of Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, the last deceased hostage in Gaza.
“Hamas has an objective difficulty” in finding the body, Alon told the Ynet news site in a wide-ranging interview, his first since he ended his two-year role, in which he also led the IDF’s intelligence gathering effort on captives and missing persons. “It’s related to the chaos they faced immediately after October 7.”
“Nevertheless, we believe that it is possible to bring him back. There is a connection between the pressure applied on Hamas and the results, so we can’t give up,” Alon said.
Arabic media reported on Monday that Hamas and the Red Cross failed to find the remains of Gvili during recent searches in the eastern part of Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighborhood.
When Hamas attacked, Gvili, a police master sergeant, was recovering at home from a broken collarbone. He quickly put on his uniform and joined the fight against the terrorists around Kibbutz Alumim near Gaza.
Gvili, who was 24 at the time, was badly wounded and Israeli authorities said he did not survive for long after being taken to Gaza.
A man holds a photo of Ran Gvili, who was killed while fighting Hamas terrorists during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack and whose body has been held in Gaza since, during a rally calling for his return in Tel Aviv, Dec. 5, 2025. (AP/Oded Balilty)
Alon told Ynet that the military had a “reasonable picture” of where hostages were located three weeks after the massacre. However, that information became “irrelevant” after a while, because Hamas would move the hostages around, creating gaps in the IDF’s intelligence.
Tamir Nimrodi, who was taken hostage by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023, from his army base near Erez Crossing (Courtesy)
He revealed that Tamir Nimrodi, a soldier taken hostage from his base near the Erez Crossing, was the first hostage to be accidentally killed by an Israeli airstrike.
After Nimrodi’s body was returned last month, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said the hostage, whose fate had remained unknown until then, had been killed in an airstrike, but did not say when it occurred.
“The house he was in was destroyed from the air. We didn’t know he was there,” Alon said.
Chen Goldstein-Almog was taken hostage from her Kfar Aza home on October 7, 2023 by Hamas terrorists. She was released on November 26, 2023. (Courtesy)
He told Ynet that, in contrast, the IDF knew where now-released hostage Chen Goldstein-Almog was located, and ensured that the home would not be struck.
“But a building 100 meters away from that house was destroyed. The windows in the house she was in shattered, the walls shook,” Alon said. “The errors of IDF bombings emerged in the stories of many hostages who returned.”
Alon also revealed that in December 2023, special forces entered a tunnel in Rafah where 12 hostages were held, without describing the purpose of the operation.
“None of those hostages were murdered,” he said, contrasting it with the murder of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, Eden Yerushalmi, 24, Ori Danino, 25, Alex Lobanov, 32, Carmel Gat, 40, and Almog Sarusi, 27, by their captors in a tunnel in Rafah in August 2024 while IDF soldiers were operating aboveground.
This combination of six undated photos shows hostages, from top left, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Ori Danino, Eden Yerushalmi; from bottom left, Almog Sarusi, Alexander Lobanov, and Carmel Gat. They were murdered by their Hamas captors in Gaza in August 2024. (The Hostages Families Forum via AP)
Regarding rallies in support of a deal to free the hostages, Alon said: “At one point, Hamas thought the demonstrations helped them and tried to raise their price [for freeing hostages]. Then it realized it wouldn’t benefit and backed down.”
“Regarding the negotiations, the influence of the demonstrations was a lot less dramatic than what was associated with it,” he said, adding that they were, however, important for solidarity in Israeli society, and were possibly influential in American decision-making.
Alon began his reserve duty on the morning of the October 7, 2023, massacre — during which 251 people were abducted — and was appointed by then-IDF chief of staff Herzi Halevi to head the Hostages and Missing Persons Headquarters.
He ended his duties last month after Hamas released all the living hostages it was holding, but was still in the process of returning the bodies of deceased captives still held in the Strip.
