Mother of woman being held hostage by Hamas fears time is running out for her daughter

A mother who last spoke to her daughter on Oct. 7 as the 23-year-old was trying to escape the Hamas assault on the Nova music festival in Israel fears time is running out to bring her child home since it appears there's no end in sight for the Israel-Hamas war. 

The last three months have been a nightmare for Meirav Leshem Gonen, the mother of Romi Gonen, one of about 240 people taken hostage by Hamas that day.

"It's horrifying because time is moving so quickly, but it's still Oct. 7 — that's how it feels," she said of her daughter during an interview with CBC News from Tel Aviv. 

"It's frustrating, and you feel like you're running after time."

Gonen has become one of the most outspoken members of the hostages' families since Hamas's surprise attack.

She fills her days with interviews, meetings with government and military officials and speeches she hopes will maintain pressure on anyone who can help get her daughter released.

The role didn't come naturally to her, but Gonen says she's driven to do it because she knows what her daughter is going through.

"We understand the conditions for the hostages are very bad, not just the lack of food, the lack of fresh water — it's also how they treat them, what they are going through," said Gonen, adding she knows about the conditions her daughter is living in because she's spoken to hostages released during November's truce in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.

According to an official Israeli tally, 129 people are still being held in Gaza, after more than 100 were repatriated during the truce or recovered during a military offensive.

While grateful for any information about Romi, Gonen fears she hasn't been given the whole picture.

"I'm not taking what I've been told as the whole truth," she said. "There are reasons they are telling us the good stuff and leaving the bad stuff out, but we know what the conditions are like and what some of them are going through and we are not fooled by them telling us only the good for our feelings."

Gonen says she spoke with a hostage released in November who told her that Romi was severely injured, which tracks with what her daughter told her herself.

She last spoke with Romi for about four hours on the morning of Oct. 7 as she was trying to hide from Hamas militants. Gonen said that during the call, her daughter told her she'd been shot in the hand and had seen friends killed around her. 

According to Gonen, her daughter told her she was hiding in a car and then in some bushes, and that she was afraid she was going to die. Gonen said all she could do in the moment was comfort Romi over the phone, until the line finally cut out completely.