Hostages Romi Gonen, Emily Damari, Doron Steinbrecher return to Israel after 471 days
Masked Hamas gunmen hand women over to Red Cross in midst of raucous crowds in Gaza City; women meet their mothers at IDF facility near Gaza, before transfer to hospital
For the first time since November 2023, three hostages taken during the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel were released by Hamas on Sunday under a ceasefire deal, returning to Israel after 471 days in captivity in Gaza and being reunited with their families.
The first three hostages freed under the deal were civilians Romi Gonen, 24, Emily Damari, 28, and Doron Steinbrecher, 31. Gonen was abducted from the Supernova music festival, while Damari and Steinbrecher were taken from their homes in Kibbutz Kfar Aza.
The three women were said to be in relatively good physical condition.
On Sunday evening masked Hamas gunmen handed the three women to the Red Cross at Saraya Square in central Gaza City, where a large rowdy crowd of mainly young men gathered, waving flags of the Palestinian terror group and holding cellphones in the air to film the event.
Looking thin and frightened, the hostages disembarked from a Hamas military vehicle, surrounded by armed men struggling to hold back the crowd, and quickly boarded the Red Cross SUVs.
An AFP journalist on-site said the Hamas gunman initially tried to keep the public away from the ICRC cars. But when another convoy of white vehicles arrived in the square carrying the three women to be handed over, the crowd of several thousand surged forward to surround them. Footage showed armed and balaclava-wearing gunmen stationed around the van containing the three women, as others stood on top of it.
#Hamas hands 3 #hostages to Red Cross in #Gaza
القسام تفرج عن #اسيرات اسرائيليات #رهائن pic.twitter.com/EvMBZs9nwK— Rita khoury (@ritakhoury10) January 19, 2025
Many of those in the crowd chanted “Allahu Akbar,” or “God is greatest” in Arabic.
Hamas released a propaganda video showing the release of the hostages, with gunmen from the Palestinian terror group giving the women “gift bags” and “certificates” before they were freed. The bags reportedly included photos of them in captivity.
In the video, a Red Cross representative wearing a red vest could be seen signing a document provided by Hamas operatives in the terror group’s distinctive green headbands, before the hostages were handed over.
???? #كتائب_القسام تنشر مشاهد من عملية تسليم الأسيرات الإسرائيليات الثلاث اليوم للصليب الأحمر في مدينة #غزة. pic.twitter.com/8T0LF4JWLu
— عربي بوست (@arabic_post) January 19, 2025
Around half an hour later, the Red Cross handed the hostages over to elite Israeli troops and Shin Bet agents inside Gaza.
They were then transferred to Israel to a complex set up by the IDF near the Gaza border at Re’im Base, where they met their mothers for the first time in over 15 months.
Red Cross Vehicles seen on their way to pick up three Israeli hostages in the Gaza Strip on January 19, 2025; Israeli hostages being handed over by Hamas to Red Cross officials in Gaza City (Al Jazeera/X; used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law/Reuters); the families of former hostages celebrate as they were handed over to troops (IDF); from left: Romi Gonen, Emily Damari and Doron Steinbrecher (Courtesy)
They also met with IDF representatives, doctors, psychologists, and mental health officers, and received initial treatment at the facility.
Back home
The IDF released footage showing the moment the Red Cross handed over the former hostages to special forces in the Gaza Strip, along with the moment they crossed the border back into Israel.
The IDF releases footage showing the moment the Red Cross handed over hostages Romi Gonen, Emily Damari, and Doron Steinbrecher to special forces in the Gaza Strip. pic.twitter.com/8Ht21aXRfM
— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) January 19, 2025
רגע חציית השבות ארצה, לשטח מדינת ישראל pic.twitter.com/941dfT15B1
— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) January 19, 2025
The IDF also published footage of the mothers of the three former hostages at the facility near the border, watching their daughters return to Israel, along with clips of the families celebrating during the moments when they were handed over to troops in the Gaza Strip.
אימהות שלוש השבות בנקודת הקליטה עם ראש אגף כוח האדם, אלוף דדו בר כליפא, צופות בבנותיהן שבות ארצה pic.twitter.com/Z1kwIIOHhK
— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) January 19, 2025
מצורף תיעוד של משפחות השבות צופות ברגעי החבירה לכוח צה״ל pic.twitter.com/TwLuIxBlaf
— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) January 19, 2025
Images released by the families showed the young women embracing their mothers as they met for the first time in 471 days.
Several photos showed Emily Damari on a video call with her family after meeting with her mother. In one, she held up a bandaged hand. Her family told reporters that she lost two of her fingers on the day of her kidnapping on Oct. 7, 2023, after she was shot in the hand during the Hamas onslaught.
From the IDF facility, the three were flown by military chopper to the Safra Children’s Hospital at Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer, Ramat Gan, where they reunited with the rest of their families.
The hospital said they would be checked by a special medical staff and looked after by support personnel and given fresh new clothes, toiletries, beauty care, and specially-prepared meals.
The children’s hospital was chosen because it offers quiet accommodation and privacy, though crowds of well-wishers gathered outside on Sunday evening.
Hundreds of people lined the roads at the Tel Hashomer hospital as the three released hostages were transported from the IDF helicopter into the building, while patients from the floor above opened the window to look down.
When the ambulances reached the plaza at the entrance of the hospital there was a loud cheer, and the young women burst into song: “Am Israel Chai” – the people of Israel live.
Tel Hashomer Hospital Director Dr. Yael Frankel-Nir said that the physical condition of the released hostages was good enough to allow them “to focus on the important thing, which is reuniting with their families, and to postpone delving into medical issues for a few hours.”
“We are closely accompanying them and their families,” she added.
The three were released hours after a long-elusive ceasefire went into effect Sunday morning, after a brief delay.
Joy in Israel
Roughly 2,000 people crowded into the so-called Hostages Square in Tel Aviv on Sunday afternoon to watch as the first images of the returning hostages were broadcast.
Israel’s confirmation that the three were in Israeli hands was met with several waves of applause.
“They are in our hands. They are coming home,” IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said in a press conference.
A strand of yellow balloons representing solidarity with the hostages was released into the air, where it curled into the shape of the ubiquitous yellow ribbon.
The hostage-ceasefire deal caps a protracted international effort to get both Hamas and Israel to agree to an accord to halt the war sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack and free the rest of the hostages. The first phase of the three-phase accord provides for a total of 33 captives to be released over 42 days in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.
Several tense hours preceded the start of the ceasefire, with Hamas twice missing deadlines to hand over the list of hostages to be freed Sunday, and Israel refusing to halt its fire until the terror group produced the names, raising concerns of the deal faltering before even entering into effect.
Gonen was kidnapped from the Nova music festival as she tried to escape the terrorist onslaught.
A British-Israeli dual citizen, Damari was taken hostage on October 7 by Hamas terrorists who attacked Kibbutz Kfar Aza, killing, assaulting and abducting dozens to Gaza.
Steinbrecher, a veterinary nurse, was also kidnapped from Kfar Aza.
In exchange for all 33 hostages to be freed in the 42-day first phase of the deal, Israel will, by the end of phase one, hand over up to 1,904 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, including several serving multiple life sentences for deadly terror attacks and murders.
The new releases under the accord are scheduled for Saturday, when four more women hostages are to be freed. All 33 hostages to be freed in the first phase of the deal are so-called humanitarian cases — women, children, men over 50, and ill or injured men. Most but not all of the 33 are believed to be alive.
Of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas during the October 7, 2023, invasion and massacre in southern Israel, 91 are now believed to remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Hamas released 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released before that. Eight hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 40 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the Israeli military as they tried to escape their captors.
Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the body of an IDF soldier who was killed in 2014. The body of another IDF soldier, also killed in 2014, was recently recovered from Gaza in a clandestine Israeli military operation.
Noam Lehmann and Shoshanna Solomon contributed to this report.
