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Romi Gonen, 24, Emily Damari, 28, and Doron Steinbrecher, 31, were named as the three hostages to be released on Sunday, the first out of 33 hostages to be freed in the first phase of the cease-fire and hostage release deal.
They are to be freed after 471 days in Hamas captivity. Romi's family confirmed the news in social media posts earlier.
Romi was on the phone with her mother all morning on October 7m 2023, and at 10:15 a.m., said she had been shot. In a chilling recording of the call her mother said: "Romi, I am with you, my love. Everything will be OK." But then the terrorists were heard speaking in Arabic and the call ended.
Her mother, Meirav Leshem Gonen, who has become one of the symbols of the struggle to release the hostages, did not stop fighting for her daughter and the rest of the hostages, meeting world leaders, government ministers and international organizations pleading for more to be done to bring her Romi home.
In June, Leshem Gonen spoke to the UN Human Rights Council's Commission of Inquiry against Israel. "When women’s bodies are used as political tools when their dignity is set aside because they are not on the ‘right side,’ it is a badge of shame for us all," she told the council.
Romi turned 24 in captivity. Her brother Shahaf said in a post on Instagram that the family believes she would return home. Later, her father Eitan said he hoped U.S. President-elect Donald Trump would bring change and, in fact, it was the pressure from Trump that led to the deal that was signed last week.
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Romi Gonen's mother, Meirav Leshem Gonen, speaks to the UN Human Rights Council
(Photo: Permanent Mission of Israel to the United Nations in Geneva)
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Romi Gonen's mother, Meirav Leshem Gonen,
(Video: Permanent Mission of Israel to the United Nations in Geneva)
"Over the past year, we have been looking reality in the eyes. We no longer try to cover it up, to shade it for our comfort and we understand we must all deal with the inescapable truth. Our eyes seek any scrap of information, any thought, any possible way, to bring them all back, today, yesterday, last year," Leshem Gonen wrote in an editorial earlier this month.
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"Our eyes in the mirror, what do they show? Do they show us that we are doing everything we can? Do they show us we've given up? What do they really tell us? When we get up in the morning and look into the mirror, I ask all of us to look deep into our hearts, into our thoughts, into our souls and tell ourselves daily that we are really where we are."
Emily Damari, a British subject, was taken from her home in Kfar Aza by terrorists during the Oct. 7 massacre. She and Gali Berman, who was abducted with his twin brother Ziv and another neighbor, had hidden in a safe room and even sent a selfie of themselves that was received only after their capture.
The terrorists killed Damari's dog in the attack. Her mother, Mandy, who was also hiding as the terrorists tried to enter her home, survived after a bullet hit the door of the room she was in, and jammed it.
Mandy said she had appealed to the British government to imagine her daughter starved, dehydrated and manhandled by men who want to murder or rape her. "If she's not dead, she's not getting enough food to eat, she's not able to wash herself, drink water, she could be ill. She's suffering from gunshot wounds to her hand and her leg... I worry every day, I worry every second because in the next second, she could be murdered, just because she's there."
Born in Surrey, southeast England, Mandy described her daughter as a Tottenham Hotspur fan who enjoys visiting the UK to see family, shop and go to pubs. Mandy has been meeting with local leaders in the UK, including Prime Minister Keir Starmer, but expressed disappointment with the British government. She called on it to do more to ensure humanitarian aid reaches the hostages as negotiations for their release continue.
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Praying for the return of Doron Steinbrecher
(Photo: Alexi J. Rosenfeld / Getty Images)
Doron Steinbrecher was abducted from her home in Kfar Aza during the Oct. 7 massacre. Her sister Yamit said they had spoken in the early hours and that Doron thought she was safe but had placed an armchair under the door. Around 11 a.m., Doron sent a last recorded message to her friends saying she had been captured. Hamas released a video clip of her after 107 days which was a first sign of life.
Doron is a veterinary nurse by profession and a devoted aunt, her family said. "She could call to say she had 15 minutes free before work and run to join the kids at the playground," her sister said.
"This feels like a parallel universe while the families of hostages are trying to carry on and Doron, is on another plain, God knows where," Yamit said. "I just know that I will not be getting the same person back."