434 days and nights in the tunnels of Gaza

On October 7, 2023, Romi Gonen was one of the hundreds of young Israelis enjoying the Nova music festival near the border with Gaza. She was shot in the arm, dragged by her hair and then by her wounded arm, jammed into a car and taken to the tunnels of Gaza. She was 23 years old; she turned 24 in August, deep underground, half-starved, her every moment under guard and liable to abuse. “These are monsters that are currently holding my sister," said Yarden Gonen, a nurse.

"They’re starving everyone, they’re mentally and physically abusing everyone, and they are sexually abusing everyone” -- men as well as women. “But girls can get pregnant, because terrorists rape them. We currently have 100 hostages, but maybe we have 101, 102, or more.”

Of the kidnap victims, Romi and nine other women are believed to be alive: Shiri Bibas, Daniella Gilboa, Naama Levy, Karina Ariev, Emily Tehila Damari, Liri Albag, Doron Steinbrecher, Arbel Yehud, and Agam Berger. Hamas murdered three other women (Inbar Hayman, Ofra Keidar, and Judih Weinstein Haggai, an American citizen) soon after they were kidnapped and has refused to return their bodies.