The Women's War

You don't fuck with women, but you especially don't fuck with Jewish women.

Today I went down to Jaffa to the i24 studios to film this segment:

A week ago today, I sat with Yarden Roman-Gat, 35, who was released from Hamas captivity. She was in Gaza for almost two months. Yarden was in Kibbutz Be’eri on October 7 with her husband and three-year-old Geffen, staying with her father- and mother-in-law and her husband Alon’s sister Carmel. Yarden is meeting with people like me, alongside her husband Alon, who also survived. She’s meeting with me not to repeat her traumas, but to advocate for her sister-in-law Carmel’s return. Carmel was also taken hostage and is still in Gaza.

When Alon woke up on October 7 he was supposed to meet Carmel in the kitchen at 6am to go for a run. They pushed to 6.30am because it was a Saturday morning. But at 6.25am missiles started attacking Be’eri from Gaza, and the red alert alarms went off. Carmel was downstairs already awake. As advised by the kibbutz, Yarden went to the safe room. Geffen and Alon joined with Carmel and the two grandparents. From that time until 10.25am, the family kept going in and out of the safe room to get food and visit the toilet. They were convinced that either the kibbutz response team or the IDF would be coming soon.

Safe rooms cannot be locked. They are designed for rocket fire. Not for terrorists invading by foot. Hamas know this. The family should have hidden anywhere but the safe room. While they were waiting, the atmosphere was quite calm at first. The adults were reading to Geffen and playing games with her, unafraid to make noise. Alon has pictures of Carmel and Geffen having fun, that he showed on his phone.

At 10.25am, Hamas entered the house from the back door. Only Alon, Geffen and Yarden were in the safe room. Everyone else was outside bringing in food and water. The terrorists took Carmel and the grandmother to the top of the house. Alon, Yarden and Geffen kept quiet in the safe room. They took the lightbulb out and Alon stood in front of the door. The grandfather was hiding in the bathroom. He was later rescued at night. Upstairs, the grandmother was handcuffed and taken outside with another four people from the kibbutz. Those innocents were all shot by the fence next to the road, in a similar fashion to the Einsatzgruppen. Hamas posted the video they took.

Carmel, however, was taken alive with a group of teenage hostages. She was driven by eight terrorists. And as the terrorists exited the kibbutz to Gaza, Carmel passed the grandmother and saw the place where she was murdered. Once in Gaza, Carmel was placed in the same house as the teenagers who were taken. We know because these teenagers have since been released. Carmel is a yogi and taught the teenagers yoga and meditation. They wrote a diary together. She took care of them.

The Hamas terrorists kept manipulating Carmel and the teens, teasing them about whether or not they would be released. One day, they took the teenagers to the bathroom and shut the door behind them. They took the kids out as part of the hostage deal, and they left Carmel behind by herself. The only thing Yarden’s family could tell us was that the terrorists were “cruel” to the teenagers and Carmel. “They were hungry.” There’s a spectrum of how people were treated in captivity. Their conditions here was not as good as others.

When Yarden was in captivity Hamas had her make a video. Hamas told her what to say, but they never sent it to her family. It took three to four weeks for her family to know she was okay. Yarden said that Hamas didn’t know they would have had so much success on October 7. They wound up stealing many more hostages than they bargained for. Once they were in Gaza, they made it up as they were going along. It was a mess. One of the hostages was moved thirteen times. They put them in tunnels. Some alone. But now it’s not a mess. It’s a system. During the first pause for hostage releases, Hamas gained a lot. They didn’t pause for the civilians; not the hostages, nor their own people. They paused for themselves. That’s why they refuse to enter another pause. They already got what they wanted.

Yarden told me she believes that the Gazans are not happy with the price they are paying for this war. And yet they still don’t believe Hamas could do what they did, even though they dislike Hamas. The Gazans are suffering but they believe what Hamas tell them. Subconsciously they know they’re being sacrificed, and yet they’re scared. “They are not able to say ‘Israel fee us from Hamas!’ but they wish for it, and they feel it.”

If Hamas are not going to release Carmel, the international community needs to continue piling on the pressure for Hamas to make a deal with Israel and return Carmel, and all of the remaining hostages.

That same day I met with Shaylee Atary Winner, a young filmmaker from Kibbutz Kfar Aza, whose home I saw, and who introduces herself as a “widow”, still uncomfortable using that word. She seems anything but a widow. A mountain of hair piled up on her head in a beehive. An enormous smile on her freckled face. At the beginning of the war Shaylee was being interviewed on Sky News. She hoped that her husband, who she was separated from in the fighting on October 7 in kibbutz Kfar Aza would be reported as a hostage, and not found dead. But while doing the interview, she received the phone call she was dreading from the IDF. Her husband was dead. And she found out live on Sky News, with her then one-month-old baby in her arms.

Her husband Yahav saved their lives as they all hid in their safe room when the Hamas terrorists entered the kibbutz. He signaled Shaylee and the baby to leave, and stayed behind to fend off terrorists. Shaylee wound up making her way through the kibbutz to take shelter in another home’s safe room. She was in there for 27 hours, with no shoes on and the desperation to keep her baby alive. When the IDF finally came to let them out of the kibbutz, Shaylee was scared to leave the safe room. She had bonded with the family in there and was worried that upon leaving she would never feel like she had family again.

It was standing outside Shaylee’s temporary home after this meeting that I found myself having chills running all the way through my body. Shaylee is a filmmaker and something about the way she told the story brought me along the journey with her, and her resilience in the aftermath of this overwhelmed me. To hear dozens of these stories doesn’t make each individual one any less special.

The next day, I went to Hostages Square; a whole outdoor quad in Tel Aviv dedicated to the hostages with live art installations, including a 240-seated dining table, with pictures of each hostage at every chair. It was there that I met with Yarden Gonen, sister of hostage Romi Gonen.

At the beginning of the war I attended an event where Romi Gonen’s father spoke. And I remembered him, and I remembered his daughter Romi, who he described as being full of light. You see it in her picture. And every time there has been a hostage deal, I have looked for Romi. How to describe Romi’s sister Yarden… Yarden is also full of life. Strong as an ox. Determined and 100% confident that Romi is fine. She just feels it in her soul. She kept telling me that she would know if Romi was not okay. She spent over four hours on October 7 on the phone with Romi, walking her through her escape, which was eventually foiled by Hamas terrorists, who abducted her into Gaza. For four hours, Yarden spoke with Romi as she hid in bushes with her best friend, and eventually found her way into a car with her best friend and two other men; one of whom was shot and killed in the car alongside Romi’s best friend, the other was shot and died in Gaza from his wounds. Romi is still alive. She was shot in her arm, and the family understand that her wound is bad. But she’s alive. Romi has many dreams. This wasn’t her first music festival. Yarden sleeps in hostage square outside most nights, refusing to go home until Romi is home.

In Israel, the women have become the boldest warriors. And one who I have become a major fan of is Lilaq Logan. Born and raised in Israel, Lilaq has become Instagram famous since October 7, with her no-bullshit, clear-minded, historically informed and educational talks on her page.

We sat on the beach in Tel Aviv for more than five hours. Lilaq is in her early twenties. She’s Gen Z through and through. “I never expected I’d be

part of a generation who think that terrorism is good,” she says. We talk about 9/11, and how if repeated tomorrow, there’d be swathes of people in America suggesting it was justified, or revolutionary. Lilaq’s message is that we all have to identify and stand up to terrorism, not just here in Israel, but all over the world.

I’m telling you. Don’t fuck with Jewish women. I wouldn’t.