Gun to the Head: The Chilling First Interview With Nova Massacre Survivor Romi Gonen

Almost a year has passed since Romi Gonen returned from captivity, yet the process of healing remains a long journey. The young woman, who was abducted from the Nova music festival and became a face of the hostage movement with her captivating smile, has finally decided to speak. In her first in-depth interview, she recounts the moments of her abduction, the terrifying phone calls with her mother, and the profound trauma she experienced while being held by terrorists in Gaza. Now that all living hostages have returned, Romi feels she can finally share the full extent of the horrors she faced, including being used as a human shield by a senior Hamas leader.

Romi arrived at the party near Re'im with her best friend, Gaya Khalifa. As the massacre began, the two left a trail of messages and location pins as their families tried desperately to save them. Ben Shimoni, a friend of Gaya’s, eventually reached them in his car. Romi recalls being the 13th person Ben saved that day. While they were fleeing, Romi’s mother, Merav, stayed on the phone with her, refusing to let her daughter feel alone even as terrorists surrounded the vehicle. Merav describes her role as a mother during that call, stating that her only goal was to ensure Romi did not feel abandoned, even if her voice was the last thing Romi ever heard.

After her vehicle was ambushed, Romi was taken to Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Wounded and terrified, she believed she would wake up without an arm. Following a surgery performed under heavy sedation, she was moved to an apartment where she was held alone by a group of men. Romi bravely detailed the abuse she suffered, including an incident where a member of the medical staff forced his way into the shower while she was vulnerable and injured. She noted that people often avoid asking if she was harassed because they are afraid to hear the truth.

Her situation worsened when she was moved to the Shati refugee camp. There, her captors, Muhammad and Ibrahim, subjected her to a reality of constant fear. One captor began sleeping on a mattress right next to her and shackling her every night. Romi shared the most severe moment of her ordeal in the presence of her mother and sister, describing how one captor held a gun to her head and threatened to kill her if she ever told anyone what happened in that room. She recalled looking through a small window and seeing the blue sky and hearing birds chirp, a painful contrast to the filth and brutality she was experiencing. Shortly after, she was taken by motorcycle through the narrow alleys of the camp and told she was being moved deep underground.