(NewsNation) — It has been 179 days since Yarden Gonen has seen her 23-year-old sister, Romi, who was taken hostage by Hamas in its Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
As Romi Gonen tried to escape the carnage at the Supernova Music Festival, she was on the phone with her mother, telling her she had been shot while hiding with her friends in a car. That car was later found empty, and Romi Gonen’s phone was tracked to Gaza.
Yarden Gonen says she and her family have been dealing with an amount of uncertainty, fear and chaos that is “unbearable” since Romi was kidnapped.
“But with that, we all try to stay optimistic and very positive because we know our people,” Yarden Gonen said. “I know my little sister. She’s amazing, she’s strong, she’s very good with making connections and to take care of herself and the people surrounding her.”
As she looked at pictures of her on the television screen as she spoke to NewsNation, Yarden Gonen said, her “heart grew bigger.”
Calls for a cease-fire have grown as the Israel-Hamas war continues and the death toll in Gaza — almost 33,000 according to the enclave’s Health Ministry — rises. Yarden Gonen says she’s not against a cessation of hostilities.
However, she says a cease-fire has to come with a hostage release.
“Please don’t forget that humanitarian aid and human rights are supposed to go both ways,” Yarden Gonen said. “If you’re demanding a cease-fire now, you should condition it with the unconditional release of all hostages. They did nothing wrong.”