Identifying the remains of St.-Sgt.-Maj. Ran Gvili on Monday had felt like victory, Captain 'L,' a dentist in the IDF’s Medical Identification and Cause of Death Investigation Unit 6017, told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.
Gvili was found buried in a cemetery in the northern Gaza Strip by the IDF, following a major intelligence breakthrough, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) revealed on Monday night.
Around 250 Palestinian bodies were exhumed and inspected before a positive ID for Gvili was established.
Unit 6017 uses three main means of forensic identification to identify the deceased: Matching postmortem (after death) fingerprints, dental work, or DNA of the deceased, to their ante-mortem (before death) examples on file.
At least two of these need to match in order to form a positive ID, 'L' explained, noting that since the October 7 massacre, most of the ID’s the unit has made have been through matching fingerprints and dental work, as they are the easiest to match.
Gvili’s ID was also done in this way.
'L' shared that prior to the mission to search for, and recover, Gvili’s remains, named “Operation Brave Heart,” he and his unit had memorized every available photo of Gvili’s ante-mortem dental work.
“Every chip and filing of his teeth, we knew by heart,” he said. “We looked for them in every body we searched.”
“As soon as we saw his teeth, we knew it was him [Gvili]. Everything else, further testing, was simply protocol to get a final, positive ID.”
According to L, the main challenge in identifying Gvili’s remains was the location of the operation.
“In the field, we were surrounded by danger,” 'L' explained. “Aside from being in enemy territory, we had to work quickly while remaining careful and professional, and staying fully aware of our surroundings.”
Identifying Ran Gvili, coming full circle
“It felt like victory. It felt like we had won,” 'L' said, describing the aftermath of Gvili’s positive forensic identification as “a moment of pure unity.”
“It felt like one nation, one voice, coming together for one thing.”
'L' and the others working on Gvili’s identification were the first ones to realize that his remains had been found, he said, “The announcement came from us.”
He described how it had taken “maybe five minutes” from the moment of identification for the news to begin to spread to the remainder of the soldiers present at the scene.
“We started hearing [celebratory] shouts from soldiers all around. It was indescribable, a significant moment,” he recalled. “There wasn’t a single dry eye.”
Since October 7, Unit 6017 had been focused on identifying fallen soldiers, 'L' shared with the Post. The unit works alongside Israel Police, and has been occasionally asked to assist in identifying those who “were not soldiers.”
In dealing with identifying the dead for over two years, 'L' said that “we [Unit 6017] felt like there was something missing during our entire service.
“Our entire unit went in to bring him [Gvili] home,” 'L' said. “It was very important for us as a unit, for us as a nation, and for his family as well.”
“Identifying Ran, the final deceased hostage, felt like the missing piece to closing that circle.”
Yonah Jeremy Bob contributed to this report.