The family of an Israeli woman being kept captive in the Gaza Strip has released her final, heartbreaking phone call with her mother — where the terrorists could be heard arguing over who gets to kidnap her.
Romi Gonen, 23, called her mother, Meirav, just moments after the car she was fleeing the Nova Music Festival on Oct. 7 was ambushed by Hamas terrorists.
She was cowering from gunfire inside the vehicle, apparently in pain, as her best friend Gaya Halifa, 24, lay dying in front of her.
Trying to comfort her daughter, Meirav, 54, could be heard gently telling Romi: “Romichoo, I’m with you, sweetheart. Everything is going to be OK.
“We will go to the hospital — you will get better and we will take a trip anywhere you wish together… I am with you, my beauty,” Meirav says in the clip, originally obtained by the Daily Mail.
As gunfire and explosions could be 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? Mommy?”
Meirav then responds by asking for details about the car she is in, so that she could send rescue teams.
But when she gets no response, the mother assures her, “Romily, you’re not alone. You’re with me, my beautiful one. Everything is OK.”
Meirav went on to stay on the line for 45 minutes, but the Gonen family said much of the recording is too painful to release.
It began at around 10:14 a.m., when Romi informed her mom: “Mom, we were ambushed.”
“The driver is probably dead. Gaya was shot and she’s not answering. Ofir was shot, and I was shot in my arm,” the daughter said, according to the Daily Mail.
“Mommy, just so you know, I’ll be dead if no one will come.”
As the reality that this may be the last time she spoke to her daughter dawned on her, Meirav said she decided to start recording the call.
“My mom told us she understood that no one was coming,” said Yarden, Romi’s older sister.
“She changed her voice to be much more calm, loving, just telling her how much she loved her and that everything will be OK.”
“She said she wanted her to hear her voice loud and clear, that she will know there is hope and that she will for her and that she loves her.”
In fact, in the final moments of the call, Meirav could be heard promising Romi they will return to the café they were dining at just three days earlier, and “you will tell me everything after you heal.”
But the terrorists soon arrived, opened up the car and could be heard debating whether or not to kill her and a man she was traveling with, Ofir Tzarfati, 27. In the clip, the terrorists could be heard arguing over who got to kidnap to her, according to the Daily Mail.
Ultimately, they dragged Romi away and taken as a hostage.
Tzarfati was later confirmed dead, as was Halifa and the man who risked his own life to rescue them — Ben Shimoni, 31, who earned the title the “Angel of Nova.”
He had managed to escape from the music festival that morning l, but returned twice to rescue nine other people.
Shimoni then made one final rescue mission to go back for his friend, Halifa, and they were on their way out when they were ambushed.
He called his girlfriend, Jessica Elter, 27, and told her that he would come back home with them when he suddenly could be heard asking, “What is that? Terrorists?” she told the Daily Mail.
Shimoni was soon shot and killed, as was Halifa, who sat next to him in the front.
Romi, a trained medic, tried to take her pulse, when she was shot.
For 55 days, the Gonen family said they did not know for certain what had happened to Romi.
Finally, as hostages were released in November, a few approached them and reported they saw her alive in Gaza, Yarden said.
They informed the family that after the phone call with Meirav cut out, she was pulled by the hair and her wounded arm and thrown to the floor of the terrorists’ car.
She apparently tried to play dead, but when she peeked out at one point, a terrorist hit her in the head with the butt of a shotgun — leaving her with a black eye and a broken back.
“They told us that her gunshot wound on her arm wasn’t treated good,” Yarden said.
“Her hand does not function. Her fingers are barely moving and are changing colors — and that was nine weeks ago.”
But, she said: “They told us also that she’s strong, that she’s holding up, that she believes in us — that we will do anything to rescue her: She knows that, she knows us and she knows our character and that’s what makes her feel stronger.”
Yarden and Elter are now demanding that Romi is brought back home so Shimoni’s final sacrifice is not in vain.
In the meantime, Yarden said, “Sometimes I feel the pain [is] so powerful, like I’m going to explode from the inside.
“I really miss her.”