October 7 · Personal story
Romi Gonen
Abducted
October 7, 2023
Abduction location
Nova music festival area in southern Israel
Current outcome
Released alive · January 19, 2025
Released alive with two other hostages on January 19, 2025.
01
Life before October 7
Before October 7, Romi Gonen described a regular rhythm: getting up for work, meeting friends, and sitting with her family. She called herself an ordinary person living an ordinary life. On the morning of October 7, she was at the Nova music festival with friends. Gonen recalled filming the sunrise and speaking with Gaia Khalifa, who was beside her. Their morning began with music and a view of the light over the festival grounds. Those were the last hours she spent with Gaia.
02
Abduction
When people began shouting that attackers were there, she and her friends ran from their car and hid in a streambed among bushes. Ben Shimoni, a friend of Gaia’s, returned to the festival area several times to evacuate people and collected Gonen and Gaia. On the road out, Gonen saw attackers blocking their route. Gunfire struck the car. She said Gaia told her she had been shot; Gonen reached to check her and was shot in the hand. Gaia died beside her. Gonen was pulled from the car, dragged along the road, and thrown into another vehicle. She was taken to Gaza, bleeding and afraid of further violence.
03
Captivity
Gonen’s first stop in Gaza was Shifa Hospital. She described being placed on a bed while people removed her shoes, clothes, earrings, and jewelry. After she left the hospital, she was taken to an apartment. Four days into captivity, she said, a man who came to examine her offered to help her shower and sexually assaulted her. A later captor filmed her, stayed close to her, and touched her despite her telling him to stop. She said the men then kept her under watch, accompanied her to the bathroom, and restrained her at night. At one point, she heard her mother’s voice on a radio asking where Romi and Ofir were. Gonen said she jumped up and trembled when she recognized it.
04
Return
Gonen was released alive on January 19, 2025, alongside Emily Damari and Doron Steinbrecher, after 471 days in Gaza. An Israeli Army photograph shows her embracing her mother Merav near Re’im that day. Her father Eitan later told Associated Press that, in their first conversation, she told him she had come home alive. During the long wait he had ended his interviews with that same message, hoping she would hear him. He said his words had given her strength and hope in captivity.
05
After return
In December 2025, Gonen spoke in a televised interview about her abduction and captivity. She described the fear of being taken, the violence she experienced, and the uncertainty of living under constant control. In March 2026, she wrote that she had chosen to speak because the world needed to know what captives had endured. She had not expected that her account might help another person speak. Her sister told her that Arbel Yehud had watched an interview and that Gonen’s words helped Yehud begin sharing her own experience. Gonen described feeling surprised, then proud that her pain had become strength for someone else. She also wrote that return did not end the difficult work of getting through each day.