Yarden Roman-Gat, her husband, Alon Gat and their 3-year-old daughter, Geffen, were visiting her in-laws in Be’eri, a kibbutz that is near the border of Israel and the Gaza Strip, on Oct. 7, 2023.
Hamas shortly after 6 a.m. launched a surprise attack against communities in southern Israel from the Palestinian enclave it governs. Four militants placed Roman-Gat and her family into a car with two other Be’eri residents. They jumped out of it as it approached Gaza. Roman-Gat handed her daughter to her husband and they ran away.
The group the U.S. has designated a terrorist organization held Roman-Gat hostage in Gaza until her release on Nov. 29. Her brother, Gili Roman, a gay teacher and member of Israel’s Nemos LGBTQ+ Swimming Club who lives in Tel Aviv, returned to D.C. last week.
“She’s doing well,” Roman told the Washington Blade on Jan. 18 during an interview at a hotel near Union Station.
Roman-Gat spoke to “60 Minutes” less than a month after her release. Roman shared with the Blade details about his sister’s time in captivity.
He said she was alone, with three men guarding her.
“For 53 days she was observed and subjected to the will of three guys,” said Roman. “We are relieved because she was not abused, and we know that other people were abused and violently treated. This is not her case, but it was still a very traumatic experience.”
Militants on Oct. 7 killed her mother-in-law and kidnapped her sister-in-law, Carmel Gat, who remains in Gaza.
Roman said his sister learned militants had murdered her mother-in-law when she overheard “a very small” part of a song on Israeli radio that had been dedicated to her.
“This is how she found out that she had been murdered, that her sister-in-law is still a hostage,” Roman told the Blade. “Since they didn’t talk about her daughter and her husband, she concluded that they are alive.”
He said the men who held his sister hostage were members of Hamas and were religious. Roman told the Blade that some of them had university degrees and they explained to Roman-Gat why she had been kidnapped.
“She was a tool of war,” said Roman. “They told her many times it is not about Gaza and it’s not about Palestine. It’s not about the Palestinians.”
“The only reason that they’re keeping her is for the global fight for Islam, is a sort of global jihad,” he added. “Of course, they do not expect to get a Muslim empire, now. She’s just a tool in the long run ambition of them to have a Muslim empire around the world. This is pretty harsh, and they constantly told her that. This is the kind of extremism that she lived in and had to protect herself (from.)”
Roman said they also forced his sister to wear a hijab.
“She said it became her only shield,” he told the Blade.
Roman said his sister didn’t realize she was going to be released until shortly before it happened. Roman told the Blade the militants wanted her to change out of the hijab she had been wearing and to appear happy, but “she wasn’t willing to do that.”
Roman-Gat reunited with her daughter, husband and her family at a Tel Aviv hospital a few hours after her release.
“It was super exciting,” recalled Roman. “It’s like the birth of somebody you already know … it was very, very moving.”
The Israeli government has said Hamas militants killed roughly 1,200 people on Oct. 7, including at least 260 partygoers and others at an all-night music festival in Re’im, a kibbutz that is a few miles southwest of Be’eri. Carmel Gat is among the roughly 130 people who Hamas continues to hold hostage in Gaza.
The Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry says more than 25,000 people have died in the enclave since the war began. Israel after Oct. 7 cut electricity and water to Gaza and stopped most food and fuel shipments.
Hezbollah, which the U.S. and Israel have designated a terrorist organization, has launched rockets from Lebanon into northern Israel.
The Houthis in Yemen have attacked commercial ships in the Red Sea since Oct. 7. The U.S. and the U.K. this month launched air strikes against the Iran-backed rebel group.
Roman told the Blade that many Israelis do not feel safe in their own country.
“We are all feeling so fragile,” he said.
Roman said his sister thinks that “somebody could take me” when she is on the street.
“I told her I feel exactly the same thing … like somebody can take my family and I will not see them for 100 days and I will not see them anymore,” Roman told the Blade.
He also pointed out more than 100,000 people have been displaced from southern and northern Israel since Oct. 7.
“We are under severe attacks from the north as well,” said Roman. “People are displaced. They don’t know when they are going to go back home. They know some of their houses have been attacked, demolished, bombarded.”
Roman noted Israelis who live near the West Bank are also concerned “their towns are going to be infiltrated” by militants who have dug tunnels. He also said there are reports of hostages and Israel Defense Forces soldiers killed “almost every day.” (The IDF on Monday said 24 soldiers were killed in Gaza.)
“We are feeling overwhelmed with fear and anxiety,” said Roman.
The International Court of Justice earlier this month heard legal arguments in South Africa’s case that accuses Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, is under increased pressure to secure the release of the remaining hostages.
“[It’s] hard to answer,” Roman said in response to the Blade’s question about whether the Israeli government has done enough to secure the hostages’ release.
Roman spoke with the Blade after he and other hostages’ relatives met with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), U.S. Sens. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and other lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Roman and his cousin also had a private meeting with U.S. Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).
“They were so attentive, so reasonable, so supportive,” said Roman, referring to the meeting with Sanders and Warren.
No ceasefire until all hostages are released
Roman was in D.C. days before A Wider Bridge brought a group of LGBTQ activists from the U.S. to Israel.
Today we visited Kibbutz Kfar Aza with a delegation of #LGBTQ activists from the United States in order to bear witness to the atrocities of October 7. It was a strong reminder for the values we are fighting for, the values that define us in contrast to our enemies, and most… pic.twitter.com/xX14A8JkkC
— Elad Strohmayer 🎗️ (@EladStr) January 23, 2024
The trip coincided with growing calls for a ceasefire in Gaza.
“The genocide in Gaza and violent attacks in Israel and Palestine must end,” said the National LGBTQ Task Force ahead of its annual Creating Change conference that took place last week in New Orleans.
Roman told the Blade he was afraid to walk in public while holding a poster with Gat’s picture on it because people “screamed at me, commented on it” when he was in New York.
“They don’t see me as a person,” said Roman. “I don’t think they see Carmel or Yarden as a person. They don’t see them as people. They see them as what Hamas tried to make them, a tool of war.”
“You have many people who are not on our side, who are justifying the fact that people have been murdered, that people have been raped, slaughtered, taken hostage,” he added.
Roman also said there cannot be a ceasefire until Hamas releases all of the hostages.
“There might be a ceasefire if all the hostages will be released,” he said. “The hostages are key.”
