By Tal Shalev, CNN
Tel Aviv (CNN) — For over two years, it was one of the most powerful symbols at Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square: a digital stopwatch, counting every minute, hour, and day since 251 Israelis were abducted by Hamas on October 7, 2023.
On Tuesday, a day after the body of the last Israeli hostage, Ran Gvili, was returned to Israel, the clock counting one of the darkest chapters in the country’s history was finally stopped.
After 843 days – more than 20,250 hours, or 1,215,000 minutes – all Israeli hostages, living and dead, were back on home soil.
“Rani is here with us. Not in the way we wished and prayed for, but he is here. Now we can finally pause this clock, and we can start to breathe, to heal, and to mourn,” said Shira Gvili, Ran’s sister. “Just as we promised – until the very last hostage” Gvili said, addressing the croud. “We made it happen, we brought Rani home.”
Gvili was joined by hundreds of Israelis including captivity survivors, families of hostages, and volunteers of the Hostages Families Forum who gathered in silence to watch the clock stop its counting. Only after a few minutes did they allow themselves to revel in the moment, unleashing a wave of applause, as if waiting to be sure this chapter had really come to an end.
“I’m still checking my pulse to see that it is real,” Dr. Hagai Levin, who led the forum’s health team, told CNN. As the chief doctor, he said, “it was my obligation to believe that it was possible and my duty to give the families hope.” The stopping of the clock “symbolizes the end of an era, a time of transition” Levin added. “We said all the time that without bringing back all of the hostages Israel cannot really recover. Now we are able to close the chapter of hostages and I hope rehabilitation begins.”
While Gvili’s return for burial gave his family the dignity and honor they deserved, it also provided closure for the Israelis who demonstrated in the square week after week, supporting the hostages’ families in their struggle.
Israelis flooded social media with pictures of them removing their yellow pin, which had become the ubiquitous symbol for the hostages, worn on bracelets, t-shirts and more. “October 7 is over,” one viral post declared. “Now October 8 can finally begin.”
The milestone carries added significance, as for the first time since 2014 that Israel has no hostages held in Gaza. The Hostages Families Forum’s campaign slogan was “until the last one,” and they stood by their commitment.
Evan, who declined to give her last name, arrived at the square with her dog wrapped in an Israeli flag. She said the timing, on the eve of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, is also significant, lending weight to a much older Jewish and Israeli vow: “Never again.”
“I couldn’t think of a better day for Rani to come back,” she said.
Yet the end of the long fight to retrieve the hostages also refocuses attention on those who did not come back alive. More than 1,200 Israelis were killed in the Hamas-led terror attack on October 7, and at least 46 out of the 251 hostages taken to Gaza died during their captivity.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed the return of all the hostages as an extraordinary achievement. “We finished the mission,” he said in a press conference on Tuesday evening.
But survivors and bereaved families of the deceased hostages are more critical of the government celebrations.
‘It is allowed to rejoice – because the people have brought them home. Just don’t forget that it could have been, it should have been, and it must be different next time,” Gil Dickman, the cousin of Carmel Gat who was killed in a Gaza underground tunnel in August 2024, wrote on X.
Lee Seigel, brother of Keith Seigel, who was released in a Januar