Mother of Israeli hostage Romi Gonen describes what the year has been like without her daughter
In this screengrab from video, Meirav Gonen, mother of Romi Gonen, speaks with Christiane Amanpour.
It’s been a year since Meirav Gonen’s daughter, Romi, was kidnapped from the Nova music festival in Israel on October 7, 2023.
It’s been one year since Gonen heard her daughter’s voice, she told CNN, adding that she doesn’t know how her daughter looks like today, if she’s holding up, if she lost her hand after being shot on the day of the attack, or if she’s smiling like she always smiled.
“I cannot even explain how you feel when you wake up in the morning, and for the first moments you hope this is only a nightmare, a dream, a bad dream. But then you are waking up to a reality,” she said. “This is so agonizing, it’s so difficult.”
Gonen said some Israeli hostages who returned home were with her daughter and they told her stories about her in captivity.
“They came back with stories — funny stories, and some disturbing also stories. She’s holding up. She was saying she’s holding up for me. And I want her to see me and I want her to see that I’m strong. I’m strong for her. I’m strong for her brothers and sisters,” she told CNN on Monday.
The freed hostages also said that her daughter lost color in her fingers, Gonen said. “The color in her fingers was changing, that her hand is not functioning,” Gonen said. “That time I thought, wow, she’s she’s going to lose her hand. We have to bring her back. But today I’m saying, it doesn’t matter if she lost her hand. We just have to bring her back alive.”
In August, the Gonen family marked Romi’s 24th birthday. “At first, we wanted to hide the fact” that it was her birthday, Gonen said. “But at a certain point, we thought that maybe she will see us.” So they marked the day to bring light and strength for people, she said.
The war, she said, is not about Israel and Palestine, but rather against Hamas. “We will not break because we are the good and the Hamas is evil,” she said.
Family member of kidnapped hostages says life will never be same after October 7 attack
In this screengrab from video, Eylon Keshet speaks with CNN
One year after several of his family members were kidnapped by Hamas during the October 7 attack, Eylon Keshet said he knows life will never be the same again. “I’m really afraid that the next time I see them will be a very big funeral for all of them. This is what I dread the most,” he told CNN.
His cousin Yarden Bibas, Yarden’s wife Shiri, and their two young children were all kidnapped from Nir Oz, an Israeli kibbutz that was devastated when it came under attack by Hamas militants on October 7.
Keshet said even if his family members are still alive, nothing will be the same. He said every day since that attack has felt like October 7, 2023, repeated over and over. “Even if they’re coming back, and I so wish they do, they lost so much,” Keshet said. He said Shiri’s parents and their friends were killed and their house has been destroyed.
“I know that even them coming back is only the beginning for them to heal and for them to maybe someday be able to move on from everything that’s happened. Shiri probably doesn’t even know that her parents were murdered,” he said.
“It will never be the same before and after” the October 7 attack, Keshet added.
As for the global response, he said empathy is not enough to bring back his family. Keshet said there needs to be “real action from real people that have the authority to make such action.”
