The family of an Israeli woman detained in the Gaza Strip have released her last heartbreaking phone call to her mother – in which terrorists can be heard arguing over who can kidnap her.
Romi Gonen, 23, called his mother, Meirav, shortly after the car he was in fled the Nova Music Festival on Oct. 7. ambushed by Hamas terrorists.
He cowered from the gunfire in the vehicle, apparently in agony, as his best friend Gaya Halifa, 24, lay dead in front of him.
Trying to comfort his daughter, Meirav, 54, was heard softly telling Romi: “Romichoo, I’m with you, dear. Everything will be fine.
“We’ll go to the hospital – you’ll get better and we’ll travel wherever you want together … I’m with you, my beauty,” Meirav said in the clip, originally obtained by the Daily Mail.
As gunshots and explosions are heard getting closer, Romi – who was shot in the arm and lost movement in her hand – tries to make sure her mother is still listening on the other end.
“Hello? Mom?”
Romi Gonen, 23, called his mother, Meirav, shortly after the car he was in fled the Nova Music Festival on Oct. 7. ambushed by Hamas terrorists.
Meirav responded by asking for details about the car he was in, so he could send a rescue team.
But when he didn’t get an answer, the mother reassured him, “Romily, you are not alone. You are with me, my beautiful. Everything is fine.”
Meirav remained on the line for 45 minutes, but Gonen’s family said most of the footage was too painful to release.
It started around 10:14 am, when Romi told her mother: “Mom, we’ve been ambushed.”
Romi Gonen, 23, was taken hostage by Hamas terrorists, and remains in custody. via REUTERS
“The driver may be dead. Gaya was shot and he didn’t answer. Ofir was shot, and I was shot in my arm,” the daughter said, according to the Daily Mail.
“Mama, just know, I will die if no one comes.”
Realizing that this might be the last time she spoke to her daughter, Meirav said, she decided to start recording the call.
“My mother told us she understood that no one would come,” said Yarden, Romi’s sister.
“He changed his voice to calmer, loving, just told her how much he loved her and everything was going to be alright.”
“He said he wanted her to hear his voice loud and clear, that he would know there was hope and that he would fight for her and that he loved her.”
Romi was cowering from the gunfire in the vehicle, apparently in pain, as her best friend Gaya Halifa, 24, lay dead in front of her. Reuters
In fact, in the final moments of the call, Meirav can be heard promising Romi that they will return to the cafe where they had eaten just three days before, and “you will tell me everything after you recover.”
But the terrorists soon arrived, opened the car and were heard debating whether to kill him and a man he was riding with, Ofir Tzarfati, 27.
In the clip, the terrorists can be heard arguing over who kidnapped him, according to the Daily Mail.
Finally, they drag Romi and take him hostage.
Tzarfati was later pronounced dead, as was Halifa and the man who risked his own life to save them – Ben Shimoni, 31, who earned the nickname “Nova’s Angel.”
He had managed to escape from the music festival that morning, but returned twice to rescue nine other people.
Shimoni makes one last effort to return home to his friend, Halifa, and they are on their way out when they are ambushed.
Ben Shimoni, 31, managed to escape the music festival but returned twice to save nine people. Reuters
He called his girlfriend, Jessica Elter, 27, and told her he was going home with them when suddenly he was heard asking, “What was that? Terrorists?,” he told the Daily Mail.
Shimoni was soon shot and killed, as was Halifa, who was sitting next to him in the front.
Romi, a trained doctor, was trying to take his pulse when he was shot.
For 55 days, the Gonen family said, they did not know for sure what happened to Romi.
Finally, when the hostages were released in November, several people approached them and reported seeing them alive in Gaza, Yarden said.
Yarden, Romi’s sister, said the freed captives told their family they saw him, but he was seriously injured. Reuters
They informed the family that after the phone call with Meirav was cut off, he was pulled by his hair and his injured arm and thrown to the floor of the terrorist’s car.
He apparently tried to play dead, but when he peeked out at one point, a terrorist hit him in the head with the butt of a shotgun – leaving him with a black eye and a broken back.
“They told us that the gunshot wound to his arm was not treated properly,” Yarden said.
“His hand doesn’t work. His fingers were barely moving and discolored – and that was nine weeks ago.”
But, he said: “They also told us that he was strong, that he survived, that he believed in us – that we would do anything to save him: He knew that, he knew us and he knew our character and that’s what made him feel stronger.”
Yarden and Shimoni’s girlfriend, Jessica Elter, demand that Romi be brought home so that his final sacrifice is not in vain. Reuters
Yarden and Elter demand that Romi be brought home so that Shimoni’s final sacrifice will not be in vain.
In the meantime, Yarden said, “Sometimes I feel sick [is] so loud, like I’m going to explode from the inside.
“I miss him so much.”
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
