The IDF on Monday afternoon found the remains of the last remaining Israeli hostage, St.-Sgt.-Maj. Ran Gvili, in northern Gaza.
According to the IDF on Sunday night, a series of clandestine operations started over the weekend to get closer to the potential location of Gvili.
There were two to three locations where the IDF suspected Gvili was buried, but the recent intelligence gave indications that Gvili was buried in a Muslim cemetery in the Shejaiay Darah-Tuffah portion of northern Gaza on the Israeli side of the yellow line.
The IDF said that the intelligence it obtained about Gvili's remains did not come directly from Hamas.
At the same time, the IDF said that Hamas, or the Qatari mediators, were consulted about this intelligence, and had believed it could be correct.
IDF sources implied that Hamas's recent information about where Gvili might have been buried, may have been misdirection.
PIJ might have buried Gvili in cemetary misidentifying him as Palestinian
In addition, IDF sources implied that Palestinian Islamic Jihad might have buried Gvili in the cemetery, thinking incorrectly that he was one of their own fighters or at least Palestinian.
Around 7:15 p.m, the IDF had said that the search could be completed in a period of hours or could take a number of days.
If the IDF had not found Gvili's body in this location, it was ready to explore the other couple of possibilities.
Further, the IDF has had pieces of information about this location for a significant period of time, but only the additional evidence it obtained over the weekend's clandestine operations paved the way to a decision that this location could really be the correct spot.
Along with the large number of IDF mandatory service and reserve troops, and engineering unit forces, the IDF team in the field has also had rabbinic advisors and a dentist to try to help quickly identify and confirm his remains.
IDF sources had said that the first move would be to try to match his fingerprints, but that if this was not an option, then teeth or DNA tests would be used next for identification.
All of this new push came as the Israeli government faced the potential embarrassment of having to open the Rafah Border Crossing, potentially before Gvili's remains might have been returned.
Gvili's identity was confirmed by the National Forensics Institute, rabbinic advisors, the police, and the IDF.
Upon the positive confirmation, they immediately notified the Gvili family.
Gvili was murdered on October 7, and then his body was taken to Gaza.
His return marks the end of the saga of returning all live and deceased hostages taken by Hamas on October 7.
Gvili was found around 2:00 p.m.
The IDF had checked around 250 Palestinian bodies in the cemetery before finding Gvili.
The military is now returning all of the Palestinian bodies, which were checked in as dignified a way as possible, in order to complete the operation.
Other possibilities about which the IDF had suspicions included a specific tunnel, under Shifa Hospital, and a central spot in Gaza City.
IDF sources rejected the notion that they delayed the operation until now and acted now due to political implications with the opening of the Rafah Border Crossing.
The military did note that an advantage of checking this site was that it was on the Israeli side of the yellow line.