The news of the last deceased hostage returning to Israel from Gaza filled headlines and airwaves on Jan. 26, 2026, including on ABC News. Despite having access to accurately written content published on ABC’s own website, on Jan. 26, 2026, four ABC News anchors failed to fully and accurately report either who Ran Gvili was, where he was found, or who recovered him. In one instance, an anchor reported a wholly fabricated fact.
Some background: President Trump’s October 2025 Gaza Peace Plan provided all hostages, including those deceased, were to be returned by Hamas in Phase One of the plan within seventy-two (72) hours of the brokered ceasefire. Twenty living hostages were returned to Israel on Oct. 13, 2025. The remains of all but one of the 28 remaining deceased hostages, Ran Gvili, were returned over a prolonged period of time, as Hamas played games with their return. On Oct. 15, 2025, a body returned by Hamas was discovered not to be that of an Israeli hostage. On Nov. 1, 2025, Israel determined that none of the remains Hamas returned the previous day belonged to any hostages. On Oct. 27, 2025, Hamas was caught via drone video of staging the discovery of hostage remains in front of the International Red Cross. The U.S.-designated terror organization last returned a deceased hostage on Dec. 4, 2025, at which time only Gvili remained.
Because the return of all hostages was a key component of completing “Phase One” of the Trump Gaza Peace Plan, and Hamas had not fulfilled its obligation, the Israeli military made headlines when it announced it was undertaking a special operation to recover Gvili’s body. On Jan. 25, 2026, ABC News shared an Associated Press article on its website detailing the operation, including that “Israel’s military said it was searching a cemetery.”
The following day, Jan. 26, 2026, Israeli authorities announced the IDF had recovered Gvili’s body in a Gaza cemetery, confirmed his identity through forensics, and returned his remains to Israel. This was not only newsworthy in Israel, but around the world. Indeed, ABC News posted an article on its own website about it. The article accurately stated Gvili had served in the Israeli Police Special Forces and died in combat during the Hamas attack on Israel. But for consumers of ABC news through streaming or television broadcasts and not written articles, it was a different story (or stories).
Just after noon on Jan. 26, 2026, ABC News Live’s Diane Macedo reported as follows: “The Israeli military says it has recovered the body of the last Israeli hostage in Gaza. The IDF says it has forensically identified the remains of a soldier who was killed on October 7 before his body was taken to Gaza.” Macedo correctly noted it was the IDF who recovered Gvili’s body, but incorrectly stated he was a soldier and did not state where his body was recovered, so viewers did not understand that Gvili’s body had been hidden in a cemetery.
A few hours later, ABC News Live’s Kyra Phillips reported: “The body of the final Israeli hostage in Gaza has been recovered and identified. The IDF says it has forensically identified the remains of Ran Gvili, one of IDF’s soldiers who was killed in battle on October 7th before his body was taken to Gaza.” Like Macedo, Phillips incorrectly stated Gvili was a soldier. She also omitted who recovered Gvili’s body and where it was recovered from, so viewers might have been left with the impression that Hamas fulfilled its obligation.
That night on ABC News Live (and subsequently streamed replays), anchor Linsey Davis correctly reported that Gvili served in the “Israeli police special forces” and that his body was found in a cemetery in Northern Gaza, but she did not share with viewers who found his body in the cemetery.
On broadcast news in the late afternoon of Jan. 26, 2026, ABC’s Eyewitness News First at 4 anchor David Novarro did not utter Ran Gvili’s name during his reporting (though a photo of Gvili was shown) and injected wrong information when he misreported:
Israel says the remains of the final hostage in Gaza have been recovered . . . a day after Israel says its forces were conducting a large-scale operation in a cemetery in Northern Gaza to find the remains of another person missing. The family of the 24-year-old police officer had urged Israel’s government not to enter the ceasefire until his remains were recovered and returned (our emphasis supplied).
Novarro’s injection of a fictional other missing person simply confused viewers and rendered the entire reporting useless, raising numerous questions, such as: did Israel find the remains of the final hostage when they were looking for another person? Who is this other missing person Israel was trying to find? Was it just a coincidence that the remains were recovered – perhaps in some other way – the day after Israel conducted a large-scale operation in a cemetery to find another person?
One thing all of these reports had in common: none shared with viewers that it was Hamas’ obligation to turn over Ran Gvili’s body.
ABC anchors had at their disposal all the requisite information needed to correctly and respectfully report on the IDF’s operation to retrieve and return the last hostage in Gaza. Somehow it was difficult for them to report that the IDF recovered 24-year-old special forces police officer Ran Gvili in a cemetery in Gaza, buried there by terrorists who were obligated to turn his body over, but did not.
ABC News did a disservice to its viewers by failing to completely and accurately report on a historic moment both for Israel and all those interested in seeing the Gaza Peace Plan come to full fruition.