For 471 days, Romi Gonen’s mother, Meirav Leshem Gonen, has been fighting for people to remember her daughter.
Aside from meeting with everyone she could and talking about her everywhere she could, she has also urged people to wear Emily’s favorite pattern, leopard print, to help remember her daughter held hostage in Gaza by Hamas. October 7, 2024, a year after the attack where Gonen was captured from the Nova festival in Israel, SNL castmember and comedian Chloe Fineman wore a leopard print hat to remind people about Romi, a talented dancer who worked at a cafe in Tel Aviv and who had gone to that fateful party with her good friend Gaia Halifa. Halifa was killed while holding Romi’s hand, as was Ben Shimoni, a fellow partygoer who helped rescue Romi before she was captured.
And now, this Sunday, January 19, Meirav finally got to remember what it was like to hold her not-so-little girl again. Just like when she was a toddler, Meirav cradled her sweet daughter, who turned 24 while in captivity, in her lap, their smiles lighting up the entire room.
סופסוף ביחד: רומי גונן בחיבוק ראשון לאמה מירב@ShaIsrael2 pic.twitter.com/mnCy3k83un
— גלצ (@GLZRadio) January 19, 2025
Romi Gonen was one of three young women held hostage since October 7, 2023 who finally crossed the border from Gaza to Israel and reunited with their loved ones after the new ceasefire and hostage release deal went into effect — the first ceasefire deal achieved since November of 2023. Meirav was in a room with Emily Damari’s mom, Mandy, and Doron Steinbercher’s mom, Simona. Both Emily and Doron were captured from their homes in Kfar Aza and released alongside Romi today.
Earlier this month, Emily’s brother Tom shared that news of a possible deal shattered him. “I need you so much, little sister. I need to know that you are safe and not in hell on earth.” Today, he finally got his wishes.
In a video call with her brother and family, Emily, 28, and her mother smile as the older woman’s arms rest on her daughter’s shoulder. She shows off her bandaged hand with two missing fingers that she lost while being shot on October 7 (the effect of which makes it look like she’s making a rock n’ roll sign). On October 7, Emily was home with her good friend Gali, who had come to be with her to assuage her fears about terrorists infiltrating their kibbutz. Gali, along with his twin brother, Ziv, are still being held hostage. Emily’s mother, Mandy, a British citizen who met her Israeli husband on a trip to the country when she was 20, was also sheltering in her Kfar Aza home.
אמילי דמארי – את הגיבורה שלי. שלנו. 🤟🇮🇱 pic.twitter.com/cPEBnf5xwc
— 🎗 Naama Lazimi – נעמה לזימי (@naamalazimi) January 19, 2025
“I want to thank everyone who never stopped fighting for Emily throughout this horrendous ordeal, and who never stopped saying her name. In Israel, Britain, the United States, and around the world. Thank you for bringing Emily home,” Mandy shared in a statement.
Emily was a fan of the Tottenham Hotspurs, a professional football club based in North London, and fans of the team had made a habit of chanting for her return at games while throwing yellow balloons, a color that has come to represent the plight of the Israeli hostages. “Bring Emily home, she’s one of our own,” they sang.
אוהדי טוטנהאם עם בלונים צהובים באמירויות מול ארסנל למען חזרתה של אמילי דמארי, החטופה הישראלית אשר מחזיקה גם אזרחות בריטית וגם אוהדת טוטנהאם. pic.twitter.com/pqbzK082Sf
— Johnny Sack (@GuyShahar93) January 19, 2025
Romi and Emily were together during their time in Gaza, and Gonen told Mandy, “You don’t understand what your daughter meant to me this entire time.”
Doron, a veterinary nurse who cares deeply for animals, wept while embracing her mom. The 31-year-old wore a bright pink shirt that she later changed out of. A video of her with a husky licking her face was widely shared on social media while she was held in captivity. On October 7, she told her family she was hiding under her bed. She sent a last message to her friends’ group on WhatsApp saying she had been captured.
דורון שטיינברכר עם אמה סימונה. כמה חום בתמונה אחת pic.twitter.com/DeLxUHWQPh
— Raz Shechnik (@RazShechnik) January 19, 2025
“I want to tell her I’m sorry, that this happened 471 days too late,” a friend of Doron told Kan11 news. “I know that the sister I sat with for dinner on the 6th of October is not the sister I will get back,” Doron’s sister, Yamit, shared. In videos of Doron reuniting with her family, her distress is clear as she struggles to stop her sobs.
ושבו בנות לגבולן pic.twitter.com/V5CuTNhUnF
— דפנה ליאל (@DaphnaLiel) January 19, 2025
Doron, her family shared, is a devoted aunt. “She can call and say that she had 15 minutes before work, and then go over and take them to the playground to play with her nephews.” While she might not be able to return to the playground in Kfar Aza, here’s hoping she finds lots of comfort in the children and in the animals that she so clearly loves.
Romi’s father, Eitan, said the Shehecheyanu prayer when talking about the news of her return. In an interview, when asked about what would be the first thing he would tell her, he replied that he would promise her “that nothing will ever hurt her again.”
“It’s impossible to describe this feeling,” he shared of her return. “It’s like a birth.”
Romi had managed to tell her mother she had been shot before she was captured from the grounds of the Nova festival. “Romi, I’m with you, and everything will be OK. We will go to the hospital and everything will be OK, and you’ll feel better. You’re not alone, my beautiful girl, I’m with you,” her mother had said. It may have taken over a year, but that promise came true.
On the ride back home, a leopard print blanket was waiting for Romi. Her sister, Yarden, who has spoken so eloquently about her these past 471 days (“I miss a cigarette before dance class that we regret later because we can’t breathe,” she said at the Israeli Knesset in November of 2024. “I miss you so much it burns, that I can’t breathe, I can’t contain”) was there in a leopard print shirt, jumping up and down, yelping her joy.
Thirty more hostages are supposed to be released during this six-week ceasefire. The next release will take place on January 25, and will include four hostages. According to Israeli authorities, the Bibas family — father Yarden, mother Shiri, and sons Ariel, 4, and Kfir, who turned 2 this weekend — will be released. But their family shared in a press release that they “have learned from past experience and disappointments and therefore until our loved ones have crossed the border, there is no end to this story.”
The story of Emily, Doron and Romi’s captivity has now ended, with joyous hugs and tears and love that can’t be contained. And now, a complicated journey of rehabilitation begins. At the Tel Aviv restaurant where Romi worked, Chez Vivie, a table waited for Romi with yellow balloons. Today, her loved ones finally got to set those yellow balloons skyward. Not so far away at the Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, a crowd gathered to celebrate Romi, Doron and Emily.
במסעדה בתל-אביב בה עבדה לפני שנחטפה: חברותיה של רומי גונן צופות בחזרתה ארצה🎗️ pic.twitter.com/7zpdgsxpMN
— Gal Ganot🎗️ (@GalGanot) January 19, 2025
Here’s hoping that all the remaining hostages will return home to such joyous celebrations — soon.
