RT has spoken with an Israeli woman whose 23-year-old daughter is still being held in captivity in Gaza following a hostage exchange between Israel and Hamas last month. The Palestinian militants had released over 100 captives, but 117 are still believed to be held in Gaza.
Meirav Leshem Gonen says her daughter was captured on October 7 when Hamas militants launched a surprise attack on southern Israel. The attack left 1,200 Israelis dead and saw the kidnapping of several hundred Israeli and foreign nationals.
The woman says she was on the phone with her daughter as she was being kidnapped and heard gunshots in the background. Her daughter told her that she had been shot in the arm and was bleeding before the Hamas militants opened the car where she was sitting and shut off her phone. This was the last time Gonen spoke to her daughter.
“This is torture not to see, not to know how is my daughter, how she feels, ‘Is she okay? is she kept well? It’s a torture,” Gonen told RT.
After the Qatar-brokered humanitarian pause in late November, when Hamas released 110 captives in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners being held in Israel, Gonen says she learned from the freed hostages that her daughter was still alive.
However, she also found out that her gunshot wound was not being treated well and that she could not move her arm. Gonen, is now calling on world leaders to help secure their release, as many other Israeli families whose relatives are still being held in Gaza are also doing.
On Monday, a group of family members appealed to the Israeli government to restart talks with Hamas to secure another hostage exchange deal.
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