Romi Gonen was named as one of the three female hostages Hamas is set to release on Sunday as part of the hostage-ceasefire deal, which will see a total of 33 hostages released in its first phase.
Romi was 23 when Hamas abducted her from the Nova Music Festival after being shot by the invading terrorists on October 7, 2023. Now, over a year later, she is expected to be freed in a hostage-ceasefire deal.
At the time of her abduction, Romi was on the phone with her mother, Meirav, as she attempted to flee the site in a vehicle with her friends.
Ben Shimoni, who has garnered the nickname the ‘Angel of Nova’, is thought to have returned to the site of the music festival to save Romi and other partygoers. Shimoni was murdered by terrorists after successfully saving nine people after driving back to the festival twice.
Her final words were “They shot me, Mom and I’m bleeding. Everyone in the car is bleeding.” The car carrying the group of friends was later discovered empty and Romi’s phone was tracked to Gaza. A recording of the call, obtained exclusively by the Daily Mail, revealed terrorists discussing whether to execute or abduct her.
Signs of life
A hostage released in November told the family Romi was alive but in bad condition. “Her hand does not function. Her fingers are barely moving and are changing colours - and that was 10 weeks ago,” the family told the Mail.
Maureen Leshem, a Canadian cousin of Romi Gonen, told the National Post on Thursday, “We have not heard any news about Romi since last November when we learned she was alive and in desperate need of medical attention for a gunshot wound to her hand.”
“Any time there were talks of a ceasefire, I actually never entertained them. At the very, very beginning I did, but then, those blows, that emotional whiplash — it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen, and it’s not happening. It’s just a killer. And I don’t know if it’s survival, or what, but I just chose not to entertain them. And, this time, I don’t know,” Leshem said. “For me, the fact that president-elect Donald Trump is behind it, I think is what’s driving my optimism.”
Romi’s father Eitan told Israel’s Channel 12 on his daughter’s birthday that she is “a magical girl. She’s all heart, all love…. a justice warrior.”
Israelis were asked to do a good deed to honor Romi’s August 18 birthday.
"It was very, very hard for me to enter Romi's room for 47 days. And now we are in this room and emotions are very, very high," Eitan told Reuters. "But we are very optimistic that Romi will come back home. We are even convinced that Romi will be back home, alive."
The family’s story gained public attention when Romi’s sister Yarden was treated in a way many deemed disrespectful while trying to speak about her sister to former The Hill political commentator Briahna Joy Gray.
Gonen's sister Yarden described her sister in an interview with The Jerusalem Post in July. "Romi really likes to go to festivals; she goes to parties and festivals all around the world," she said, explaining that that is how Romi ended up at the Nova festival.
Yarden described her as fun-loving, saying that "she loves dancing and always knows how to enjoy life." Her father had also previously described Romi as “a magical girl, all heart, all love—a justice warrior.”
Her sister also shared that hostages released in the November deal said that Gonen was "a beacon of light for them," in captivity, always trying to encourage the hostages to laugh and to talk to each other.
Yarden shared, in an August interview, a story that she heard from a released hostage that highlighted Gonen's positive spirit and ability to find humor in even the most terrible of situations.
Gonen, while in captivity, was taken aside by one of the terrorists, who began to speak to her in Arabic. Every few moments, Gonen would say "no problem" or "ok," assuring her captor that she was listening and calling him by the Israeli endearment "my life."
When he finished speaking, she returned to the other hostages, and they asked her what he had said. "I have no idea," she admitted to them, "I don't speak Arabic."
Yarden described being on the phone with Gonen for 4.5 hours on the morning of October 7, trying to coach her and her best friend, Gaya Halifa, through their attempted escape from the site of the Nova festival.
After seeing terrorists in Sderot on TV, Yaden urged Gonen to "drive as fast as you can as far as you can from the border."
Gonen and Halifa kept cool heads, Yarden described. "She was so cool. She said,'ok I'm with Gaya.'"
"They are like soulmates," she added. "She is the one that Romi can rely on that will help her in any situation. And she was so confident in Gaya."
The girls were "very focused and calm," driving through the feilds as Halifa's father helped guide them over the phone, Yarden said.
Over the phone, Yarden could hear the situation devolve into chaos. The girls left their car, got in another, and then hid in bushes for hours.
Yarden described the terror of the two hours Gonen hid in a bush as terrorists got closer to her.
"At one point, Romi is saying to me 'shhh they are here, they will hear you,'" she described.
They eventually left the bush to try to escape in the car of a friend who came to rescue them, but they were ambushed while driving. Gonen called her mother, telling her that everyone in the car with her had been shot, that Halifa was dead, and that she had been shot and needed medical attention.
She was in the car for another 45 minutes before she was taken captive, Yarden said.