“I ended every interview with these words: ‘Romi will come back alive.’ I said it thousands of times, hoping she’d hear it just once and she did,” he added. “That was the most important thing she had to tell me in the first sentence after 471 days of not speaking.
“I feel incredible euphoria. We waited so long for this day — to feel, to embrace Romi, to talk to her, like you see in the pictures. I get emotional every time I see that video; it’s the highest of all highs.”
“If she wants us to stand aside, that’s what we’ll do — and it’s working. When she feels a little closed off, she says, ‘Let me go,’ and we do. When she says, ‘Gather around me,’ we gather.”
Eitan shared that the family was surprised by Romi’s physical condition. “We were very worried about her right arm, where she was injured. We had no idea what or if she’d eaten or if she was sick. But I know Romi’s noble spirit; she’s the family’s sunshine. I wanted that to come back, unharmed. Our sunshine is shining again, without a doubt.”
Romi Gonen, Emily Damari and Doron Steinbrecher land in Israeli hospital after their release
(Video: IDF Spokesperson’s Unit)
He stressed that a bond formed between her and the other captives. “The friendship between her and Emily Damari became like a bond of blood. She met Emily in captivity and something extraordinary developed there. I stand aside and say, ‘Wow, we have another family member.'”
“They were each other’s entire world in captivity. They talked, helped and cared for each other — like a mother, a father, a sister. And when they returned to Israel, they did everything together.
“They go out to eat together, visit places together and chat in each other’s rooms. We’ve gotten to know the wonderful families, both Emily’s and Doron Steinbrecher’s. I stand aside and see three superheroes.”
Are there any signs hinting at their time in captivity?
“On Romi’s first day back, I think most of her speech was in Arabic and she didn’t even realize it. She spoke Arabic nonstop there for over 400 days. She learned it because the terrorists didn’t speak Hebrew or English. So, in the toolbox she developed for herself, part of it was learning how to communicate — to make requests, to get permission for everything she wanted to do.
“To stand, to talk, to go right, to go left — it all required approval. And how do you get that? Only by learning their language. So, yes, that’s one anecdote: Suddenly, I have a daughter who speaks Arabic.”
“All captives must come home. There’s no need to look for someone to blame — Hamas is a terrorist organization; we know that. They’ll test all our nerves, breaking agreements here and there.”
3 View gallery
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, Itamar Ben-Gvir
(Photo: Alex Kolomoisky, Menahem KAHANA / AFP)
“I can’t believe they wear a kippah. They claim to be Jews, even more righteous than me but I think that’s very wrong. They acted against Judaism, against tradition and against the most fundamental Jewish mitzvah, redeeming captives.”
“Don’t try to scare us with the released terrorists. We have the IDF, we have security forces — why was Ben-Gvir the national security minister? He stripped the police and everyone under him of their power,” he added.
“If his daughter had been kidnapped, he wouldn’t have said these things, not him nor Smotrich. I’ve said this from the start: to speak at the expense of the hostages’ families and call this a reckless deal means they themselves are reckless, not anyone else.”
Article by:Source:
