Yarden Roman-Gat just came back to Israel after almost a month in South Africa with her husband, daughter and sister, to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Simchat Tora. Her sister, Roni, talks about what happened on October 7th on video.
"My sister, Yarden, is a person that has lots of love, warmth. I just had three amazing weeks with her and with Geffen and Alon in South Africa. I never thought, for a moment, that I'd had to come back into this reality.
"Yarden, Alon and Geffen flew back to Israel on Friday to celebrate the holiday with Alon's family in Kibbutz Be'eri and slept over there.
"On Saturday morning they were in the bomb shelter, the whole family was in the house together, and at some point the terrorists came into the house. They brought everyone out, apparently not at once. Alon, Yarden and Geffen got in a car with four armed terrorists, and it just started driving toward the border.
"Right before they reached the border a tank approached and possibly alarmed the terrorists who were trying to understand what it was. Alon and Yarden took a bold decision they were going to seize the moment, jumped out of the car and ran off. Yarden asked Alon to take Geffen, because she knew he could run faster than her, and that's what happened. They just ran. At that point, the terrorists saw them and started chasing them and shooting right at them. This is all from Alon, who tells he ras as fast as he could. When he briefly looked back, he saw Yarden hiding under a tree with her hands over her head to protect herself. That's the last time anyone saw Yarden or knows anything about her. We assume she's currently in Gaza.
"Yarden is a German citizen, and I truly expect the whole world to realize that this is a problem not just for Israel. It's a problem for Germany, for Europe and the entire world. Hamas reshaped the rules of terror: Civilians, women, children, elderly, innocent people who are just held captive. And my sister is possibly there.
"I call on the Israeli government, on the German government, and on the entire world: Bring my sister back to me."
