When Romi Gonen was released in a hostage deal last weekend it ‘completed the mission’ of an amateur racing driver dubbed the Angel of Nova.
Ben Shimoni, 31, used his skills to rescue friends when Hamas terrorists stormed the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023.
But on escaping the massacre, the professional chef then did something truly remarkable – and turned his car around to drive back into the bloodbath.
Ignoring pleas from his distraught British-Israeli soulmate Jessica Elter – who was on the phone from home throughout – he saved nine people on two trips.
Ben then promised he would complete one final ride to save his friend Gaya Halifa, 24, who was cowering under a hedge with her best friend Romi, also 24.
Tragically, however, after managing to weave past terrorists to find the girls, they were nearly out of the danger zone when Hamas ambushed the vehicle.
Jessica, 29, who holds British citizenship through her Liverpudlian father, had to listen helplessly as she heard the love of her life shot dead along with Gaya.
Romi lay wounded in the back – having been shot in the hand as she checked Gaya’s pulse – alongside another wounded man, Ofir Tzarfati, 27.
Jessica Elter, the girlfriend of Ben Shimoni, who died during the Hamas massacre at the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, said the release of hostage Romi Gonen has brought her closure
Ben Shimoni had tried to save Romi before he was brutally killed by Hamas. Romi was then kidnapped by the terrorist group
Meirav Leshem Gonen, the mother of freed hostage Romi Gonen, speaks during a press conference at Sheba Tel HaShomer Medical Centre in Ramat Gan on January 20, 2025. She thanked Ben for saving her daughter
The two living passengers were kidnapped into Gaza, and when Ofir’s body was recovered weeks later it was feared Ben’s last mission had been in vain.
But incredibly, after 15 months in captivity, Romi was returned last week alongside Doron Steinbrecher, 31, and British hostage Emily Damari, 24.
Jessica, who is still deeply traumatised from losing the man she was going to marry, says her release finally allows her to try and move forward in life.
‘Romi is my closure,’ she tells the Daily Mail from Tel Aviv. ‘Ben tried to save her, it was his mission.
‘If he was here, he would say my mission is not completed until Romi is here. Now it is – she’s home.
‘It’s a moment that I have been waiting for so long. This could have been a sad story with a sad ending, but it’s got a happy ending now. I had maybe the first real smile since October 7.’
The hedge where Romi and Gaya had been hiding was torched by the terrorists and there is little doubt they both would have died had they stayed.
Indeed, Romi’s mother, Meirav Gonen, 54 – who was on the phone to Romi as she was kidnapped into Gaza – singled out Ben for saving her daughter this week.
Released Israeli hostage Romi Gonen is embraced by her mother, Meirav, after being held in Gaza since the deadly October 7 2023 attack by Hamas
Emily Damari with her mother in Shefayim, Israel after the hostage release on Sunday
Family members welcoming Israeli hostage Doron Steinbracher at the Sheba medical centre in Ramat Gan near Tel Aviv, on January 19
‘The courage, camaraderie, and survival instinct displayed in that vehicle made it possible for Romi to survive and one day tell the story of them all,’ she said.
‘May the memory of the three murdered victims be a blessing.’
For Jessica, from Jerusalem, Romi’s return also means she will find what happened in her partner’s final moments.
‘She’s the only one who knows what he said, his last words,’ she said. ‘Did he suffer? She’s the only one who can close that for me.’
All she heard on the day was Ben shout ‘terrorists,’ as Gaya and Romi screamed at him: ‘Drive, drive, drive!’
‘I heard guns – and then quiet,’ she says. ‘Today I know that quiet was death.’
So desperate was Jessica for answers that the day before the October 7 anniversary she found Ben’s burnt-out Cupra Formentor and sat in it to be close to him.
‘It was one of the hardest things I ever did,’ she said on sitting in the charred, bullet-ridden chassis. ‘I saw how he got murdered. I saw his head falling. I saw the shooting.
‘I’m dreaming of it nearly every day, dreaming that I’m inside the car and I can’t save him. It was difficult, but important to understand.
‘This was our car. We were driving in it every day, smiling and dancing in it. Going back to this place… there is a dissonance, between the screams of happiness we had together and the screams of blood and sadness and hurt from the day he was murdered.’
It was part of a long road to come to peace with her grief, which included a powerful fashion show for Nova survivors covered by the Daily Mail in December 2023.
Jessica wore the wedding dress she had dreamt of wearing with Ben – with a bullet wound over her heart to symbolise his death.
‘People don’t understand the meaning of losing the person you love the most in such a traumatic way,’ she said.
‘Just suddenly one day they are gone – and you know they suffered just for being Jewish. Just for being themselves.’
But now, with Romi back, she has given herself permission to try to start to move on.
She first heard the news that the waitress Ben saved was on the list on her birthday. ‘I was crying, my birthday has become a sad day for me – but then I heard this amazing news.
‘I thought, ok, this is Ben’s birthday gift to me. Ben really wants to give me this closure.’
On the day itself, she turned her phone onto flight mode and stayed at home, watching the rescue on TV. ‘I was screaming, crying, smiling – all the emotions,’ she said.
‘Then I saw her face – she was there. I just couldn’t believe it. It was a moment I was waiting for so long.’
While she still feels Ben’s presence everywhere, she believes that he has given her permission to start ‘a new chapter’ now Romi is home.
‘He is always behind me,’ she said. ‘Even now we are speaking, I feel he’s here smoking a cigarette. But he wants me to be happy – I know it.
‘I know I will never be the same Jessica. I really miss her, because the Jessica who was here the whole of last year – I don’t know who that is.
‘But today I understand that there will be a new Jessica, and I need to hug her, and to accept her, and to smile at her.’
