Freed Hostage Romi Gonen Recounts Repeated Sexual Assaults During Captivity
Freed hostage Romi Gonen described to Channel 12’s Uvda program repeated sexual assaults throughout her captivity, beginning as she was being treated for a gunshot wound she sustained while she was captured at the site of the Nova Festival on Oct. 7, 2023.
“I went through all kinds of assaults, from four different men, over the course of my captivity. Different levels of severity,” she said.
Gonen, who had been shot in the arm during the attack, was taken to Shifa Hospital in Gaza, where she was assaulted during medical treatment. As a female nurse examined her, “a guy just started to tear off all my clothes. One of them took off my shoes.” He then began removing her jewelry.
“I was just there, with some 15 people touching me, at the same time. Until it got to the point they were tearing off all my clothes, but I lay there naked. It was like an out-of-body experience, where you’re seeing everything from above,” she said. “I was sure I was going to wake up without an arm.”
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Gonen recounted how she was sexually assaulted by four different men during her captivity as she was moved to various locations. On the fourth day after the kidnapping, she was living in a house with five Hamas terrorists. One claimed to be a nurse and said he would treat her wounded arm, which caused her incredible pain. The man asked her to shower and assaulted her.
Gonen said, “I was wounded, I had no power over them, and I was in a situation in which I couldn’t do anything. He took everything from me. And I had to continue living with him in the house afterward.”
In another location, she was abused by men named Mohammed and Ibrahim. Gonen was watched every time she went to the bathroom and was made to sleep on a mattress with her abuser, who had a gun under his pillow.
At one point, Gonen lied and said she had a husband, but this did not cause her captors to relent in their abuse. She also said she feared pregnancy and was relieved when she was given a test that turned out to be negative.
One day, her captor told her that Hamas ordered him to kill her but was given the option to take her for himself. Gonen then recounted how he assaulted her for half an hour. As she described feeling “paralyzed … he was ecstatic. He got a gift for life.” He then put a gun to her head and told her that if she revealed what happened, he would kill her.
Following this assault, Gonen was moved to the tunnels.
“It was his [Mohammed’s] last day [holding me], and he hadn’t planned for it to be his last day, so he managed to do everything he could before I left. He had a window of opportunity in that half-hour, and he made use of it.”
