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3 Israeli women return home after 471 days in Hamas' captivity. Who are they? gaza ceasefire
Israel also released 90 Palestinian prisoners and detainees as part of the ceasefire agreement with Hamas.
The ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas took effect on Sunday with the Palestinian militant outfit releasing three Israeli hostages on the first day of the truce deal. The three women stepped out of Gaza after being held captive for 471 days.
Romi Gonen, Emily Damari, and Doron Steinbrecher returned to their beloved families as Hamas kept its end of the bargain. In exchange, Israel released 90 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
Notably, in the militant group's October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, some 250 people were kidnapped and taken hostage. That day triggered what turned out to be a 15-month long war in Gaza.
TRACK | Israel-Hamas Ceasefire Live Updates
While many hostages were released, rescued, or their bodies were recovered in between these 15 months, around 100 continued to remain in Hamas' captivity.
Homecoming of the three women
Romi Gonen
The 24-year-old Israeli was abducted from the Nova music festival in southern Israel on October 7, 2023.
Romi spent nearly five hours of that day's morning speaking to her mother, Merav, and her eldest sister. The backdrop: militants barging and rushing through the grounds of the music festival.
Romi had told her family that roads were blocked with abandoned cars, making it impossible to escape from there. She told her family that she would hide somewhere in the bushes, The Associated Press' report said.
The words that continued still terrify Romi's mother. She had said, "Mommy I was shot, the car was shot, everybody was shot. ... I am wounded and bleeding. Mommy, I think I’m going to die."
In that situation, Merav tried to calm her daughter down, convincing her that she was not going to die. She told her to breath and treat her injured friends.
As gunfire approached closer and men's shouts took over every other sound, Romi's last word on the call, according to Merav, was a shriek: "Mommy!"
After this, the phone went off and later the device's location was identified by Israeli authorities to be in Gaza.
Merav has consistently appeared on Israeli news channels over the past 15 months, voicing her opinions and advocating for the return of the hostages. She even travelled abroad on several missions.
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“We are doing everything we can so the world will not forget,” she had told AP on the six-month anniversary of the Hamas attack. Romi's mother had said, "Every day we wake up and take a big breath, deep breath, and continue walking, continue doing the things that will bring her back.”
Emily Damari
A 28-year-old British-Israeli citizen, Emily Damari was kidnapped right from her apartment on Kibbutz Kfar Aza, a communal farming village which was struck hard during the October 7 assault by Hamas.
Emily was living in a small apartment in the village, in a locality for young adults, which the closest Kibbutz part to Gaza. Militants had barged in through the border fence and run across the neighbourhood.
Emily's mother Mandy had said how she loves music, travelling, soccer, good food, karaoke, and hats. Kibbutz Kfar Aza, meanwhile, had said that Emily was often the "glue that held her close-knit friend group together'.
Emily was described as the usual 'organiser' of friends' gathering around the best barbecue corner in the entire kibbutz.
After her daughter was released as part of the truce deal on Sunday, Mandy thanked supporters "who never stopped saying her name", adding that Emily was "finally home" after 471 days.
Doron Steinbrecher
Doron Steinbrecher, a 31-year-old veterinary nurse who has immense love for animals, was a neighbour to Emily Damari in the Kibbutz Kfar Aza. She is both an Israeli and a Romanian citizen.
On the morning of October 7, 2023, at around 10:20 am, Doron called her mother and told her she was scared. "I'm hiding under the bed and I hear them trying to enter my apartment," her brother Dor recalled her as saying.
She was also able to send a voice note to her friends. And in the moments of her abduction, she yelled, "They've got me! They've got me! They've got me!"
Notably, Doron and two female Israeli soldiers were seen in a video released by Hamas on January 26, 2024. Her brother said that the video was a ray of hope for them that she was still alive. But, her weak and gaunt appearance sparked concerns as well.
Hamas militants killed 64 people and 22 soldiers, and abducted 19 people from Kibbutz Kfar Aza on October 7, 2023.
With the homecoming of Doron and Emily, three more members of the kibbutz remain in captivity in Gaza -- American-Israeli Keith Siegel and twins Gali and Ziv Berman.
The first phase of the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, which is currently in force, will witness the release of a total of 33 hostages.
Just hours before the ceasefire began on Sunday, Israel had announced that it retrieved the body of a soldier, Oron Shaul, who was killed in the 2014 war with Hamas and whose remains the militant group had held since then.
His body and that of another soldier, Hadar Goldin, was in the Hamas militants' hands since then despite a public campaign to return them by their families was held.
The Hostages Families Forum, a group which represents the kins of the hostages, described the Shaul family as an "inseparable part" of them.
Notably, Goldin's mortal remains and those of two Israelis who crossed into Gaza in 2014 and 2015 of their own accord are still with Hamas.
(with AP inputs)
