Mother of Former Israeli Hostage Reacts to Release of All Living Hostages

MEIRAV LESHEM GONEN: Until the car — all the car and the people that sat in the car were shot. Two of them were murdered on the spot. And Romi and another boy named Ofer Tsarfati (ph) were shot pretty badly. Romi was shot in her hand and she lost a lot of blood and she lost the ability to use the hand. So, she was crippled for more than one year and three months and suffered from a horrifying pain.

And when she came back — when we brought her back, she went through three surgeries until now to try and gain back some of the functions in her hand. It is getting better, but first it hurts as hell. And second, it’s a very hard work to try and move again the parts that either were not working for 471 days or were damaged so badly. Thank God we have very good doctors in Israel and she’s so determined to use her hand again and she’s working really hard.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: And as we’re speaking, we’re seeing you and her reunited when she did come back in January. So, it was a happy, happy, happy scene, the tears, of course. So, you know, we’ve been talking all day about what the remaining or the returning hostages can face, you know, what do — how do they heal physically but also their mental health? And these hostages have been in even longer, you know, eight months or nine months longer than your daughter was in.

So, what would you say to them, to their families? Obviously, they have a big infrastructure around them, they’re in hospitals, but how do you heal from this?

GONEN: Well, you know, it’s much above my possibility to explain to them because first, they were more, nine more months. My daughter was 471 days, they were 737 days, two years in Hamas hands. So, first, I take it as they have very strong will to withhold two years in torture, in pain, in dark places, no food, being starved, being tortured. You need to be very strong.

So, first I say, we need to give them the reassurance that we trust them, they know better than us. I can also say it takes a lot of time. We are only in the start of the healing process and now that when they were brought home, it will be maybe a little faster, but it takes time to heal the body, it takes time to heal the wounds and it takes much more time to heal the soul.

We can only give them the ground, the love and the possibility to see that there are good things in our life, that the family is strong, that they are being loved here and they are being protected. But one of the issues of being protected is to know that Hamas is not strong anymore and that we can maintain our security inside Israel. And it’s not easy because we are releasing terrorists that have blood on their hands.

And we do expect all the countries that helped us get this agreement to continue and support and make sure that we will be able to live here secure and also the Gaza people that were under Hamas terror domination will be able to live in secure. So, only I think love is one of the strongest feelings we can give to each other and this is a very healing feeling.

AMANPOUR: You know, it is healing and hopeful listening to you. Just one last question. Do you think, as President Trump has said, that this is the end of the war?

GONEN: I would like to say yes, but I’m Jewish and I know that for thousands of years there always been some terrorists that wanted to eliminate us, wanted to kill us. The Holocaust is just around the corner. It wasn’t too far from today. In 1929, we suffered something very similar to the 7th of October. If we are strong and if the world, the free world is strong, then there is — it is more likely that we will have more years of secure or feeling of secure and we will be able to live in peace with our neighbors. But this needs to be together with the big states, the big leaders of the world. It is not something one country can do.