After enduring over 800 days of profound hardship, Gaza’s future largely hinges on the fate of a single hostage.

This situation underscores the resilience of the Israeli people. Out of the 251 individuals captured by Hamas on October 7, 2023, only one remains unfreed.

Talik Gvili, 55, finds little solace in this, as she is the mother of the last remaining hostage in the region.

“It feels like helplessness,” she expressed to the Daily Mail from her home in Meitar, southern Israel. “There’s a mix of fear and anticipation… It’s all the negative emotions.”

This week, Ms. Gvili and her husband, Itzik, 61, journeyed to Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida to meet with both the US President and Benjamin Netanyahu.

While the leaders discussed potential actions against Iran and the possibility of “wiping out” Hamas if they refuse to disarm, Ran’s parents emphasized that, according to the peace plan, the primary focus in Gaza must be their son’s safe return.

In response, President Trump vowed to ‘bring Ran home’.

The 24-year-old was an elite police officer who ran from their house towards danger when Hamas launched its atrocity and Israeli officials believe he is dead.

Ran Gvili was an elite police officer who ran from his home towards danger when Hamas launched its atrocity on October 7, 2023

Mrs Gvili has been campaigning for her son’s release for over 800 days

Talik Gvili with a picture of her son Ran which she presented to Donald Trump this week urging the President to bring him home

Under the terms of the first stage of Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan that came into force on October 10, all 48 hostages should have been immediately returned.

But while the 20 living were freed, the terrorists dragged their feet on the 28 dead and claimed many could not be found in the rubble.

Now Israel – and the Gvili family – are agonisingly close.

‘We can’t move on to phase two of the deal until he’s brought home,’ Ms Gvili said resolutely.

For her, this is the most important point – as the fear of the world moving on without Ran coming home is too awful to bear.

The fragile ceasefire sits on a knife edge, with Mr Trump this week threatening ‘hell to pay’ if Hamas do not agree to disarm – another key sticking point preventing a move beyond ‘phase one’.

Yet if Ran is not returned, an Israeli official told the Mail in no uncertain terms that ‘there will be no second phase.’

Ms Gvili still clings to the hope of a miracle that her ‘amazing, unique boy’ who cared for children with learning difficulties and was a talented guitarist has somehow survived.

‘We want to believe that there is even a 0.0001 per cent chance – a hope that maybe just maybe he is still alive,’ she said.

‘We hope that he received medical treatment but we also have our feet on the ground and understand that there is a problem. We just really hope they will find him and bring him back.’

Mr Trump promised to ‘bring Ran home’ after he and Benjamin Netanyahu met with the hostage’s parents in Mar-a-Lago

If Ran is returned, it would be the first time in over 10 years there are no Israeli hostages in Gaza.

But he is held not by Hamas but by another terror group, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, who chillingly have declared: ‘The issue of the hostages has been closed.’

‘I think they know exactly where he is,’ said Ms Gvili. ‘It’s very clear to me.

‘They are playing with us to buy time or they have some other trick they are trying to pull. I don’t believe them.’

For over 800 days Israelis have rallied daily to pressure both their own government and the world which has seen 250 of the 251 taken on October 7 returned as well as four others held for 10 years.

‘After more than two years, we have gone from 255 hostages to just one: the brave hero Ran Gvili,’ said a spokesman for the Hostages and Missing Person Forum which has led the efforts.

‘We will not leave Ran behind. We will exert every possible effort to ensure his return.’

Ran is believed to be held in Zeithoun, south east of Gaza City, after being shot in the hand and foot and kidnapped into Gaza unconscious on a motorbike on October 7.

Since then his parents and siblings Omri, 29, and Shira, 24, have not stopped fighting for him.

Ms Gvili still receives love and support from fellow hostage families who ‘are the only people in the world that can understand’.

Now she hopes that finally, as with them, her torment will soon be over.

Until then though, she pleads: ‘Please, keep saying his name.’