They're home!

Romi, Emily and Doron return home -- and it feels miraculous

I just turned off the TV, after hours of waiting and watching for Romi, Doron and Emily, the three female hostages released home after 16 months of captivity in Gaza.

There they were, surrounded by Hamas terrorists, (I originally wrote militants, because I was grappling with seeing so many masked Hamas men surrounding the three women, and kept wondering who they were and where were they on October 7, if they were new recruits and TO TAKE THAT HAND OFF OF DORON’S SHOULDER!) and they emerged from one van and were hurried into the Red Cross car.

Doron in hot pink, Emily in green and Romi in black.

As Channel 12 anchor Yonit Levi quickly pointed out, they were each walking on their own two feet, their bodies seemingly whole, their long hair brushed and pulled back from their faces.

I’d spent the entire day getting ready for this moment, in a small sense, along with all of my ToI colleagues. I’d updated the Missing profiles of the 33 hostages slated to be released in this first stage on the Times of Israel website, mostly updating each person’s age. Some celebrated one birthday in captivity, others two, if their birthdays were in October, November, December or early January.

I had interviewed two family members of released hostages from November 2023 who spoke about the journey from captivity, what it’s like to live with the reality day in and day out. And that reality was after some 50 days of captivity, not 471 days.

I kept thinking about the conversations I’ve had with Romi’s mother, Meirav and Doron’s mother Simone. Sometimes after a protest or on the phone, sometimes I would send Meirav a Whatsapp, just checking in on her.

As this afternoon wore on, everyone seemed to be biting their nails, figuratively at least. I felt cold, even though the heat was on.

We saw images of fleece blankets and cozy corners readied for the three women and their families, including a leopard printed blanket that belongs to Romi.

Emily Damari and her mom, left, Romi Gonen and her mom Meirav, and Doron and Simona Steinbrecher

Thousands of Israelis crowded into Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, and word was that the roads were emptier than usual, as we all stuck close to home, watching the news.

And when the Red Cross vans arrived at Israel’s border with Gaza, at Kibbutz Re’im, so close to where Romi Gonen was initially taken hostage from the Nova rave, we all relaxed a little. They were back in Israeli territory, in our hands.

We hadn’t fully seen them yet. Yonit Levi reminded us that the returned hostages of last year had lost so much weight. A newscaster spoke about Hersh, and how he weighed just 115 pounds when he was killed by his Hamas captors.

Another newscaster, situated in Kibbutz Ruhama, where some of Kibbutz Kfar Aza is now living, in the Negev, was surrounded by friends of Emily Damari, all decked out in Israeli flags printed with Emily’s face. They were elated, joyful, reciting the Shehechiyanu blessing of thanks. One of them, a tall guy, lifted the newscaster on his shoulders, as she cracked up, and kept on interviewing him while held up high.

The journalist lifted up and the already meme'ed image of Emily Damari's hand

Even Yonit Levi smiled a full smile at that image, with all of her teeth showing.

We heard from another friend of Emily’s on Channel 12 who was wearing royal blue, Emily’s favorite color, she said, urging everyone to wear royal blue in support of this returned hostage.

And finally, finally, we started seeing some images of the women and their mothers. There was Emily with two fingers missing from her hand, after being shot on October 7, but grinning broadly.

We heard that Romi Gonen told Emily’s mother that she wouldn’t have survived without Emily by her side. Remember, they were strangers to one another before being hostages — presumably together —- in Gaza. And there was a heartwrenching picture of Doron crying in her mother Simona’s arms, and the family’s statement about “Dodo,” clearly the family’s nickname for Doron.

So much joy and at the same time, so much pain.

These three women are back, metaphorically hugged by us all. But what about the remaining 94 hostages — I can’t just blithely assume they’ll all get home, alive and well.

I’m thinking about the 30 hostages who were killed in captivity and how their families, like my friends Jon and Rachel, are grappling with their own mixed emotions.

There are all the soldiers killed in these 15 months of war — and the families whose loved ones were killed in terrorist attacks and those terrorists are now being released in this hostage-prisoner exchange.

One of the terrorists is Mohammed Odeh, the bus bomber who killed Marla Bennett and Ben Blutstein 22 years ago. Marla was the dear friend of many friends of mine, while Ben was my camper once, long ago, when he was 13 at Camp Ramah in the Poconos and lost his Croc on a canoe trip.

Lots of thoughts. Lots of feelings.

And at the end of the hours-long gathering in Hostages Square, someone got on a microphone and named each of the remaining hostages, both alive and dead, in the litany of naming that we’ve become so accustomed to in the last months.

There’s a long road to travel still in these stages of the ceasefire. Let’s hope it holds.