Former Gaza hostage Romi Gonen says the top Hamas commander in Gaza tried to pressure her into a deal aimed at covering up Hamas atrocities.By World Israel News StaffAn Israeli woman held hostage by Hamas in the Gaza Strip for over a year was forced to remain silent on the sexual assault she endured at the hands of her captors, as part of an arrangement imposed on her by the commander of Hamas forces in Gaza.On Thursday, Israel’s Channel 12 published the final portion of an interview conducted with Romi Gonen, a 25-year-old ex-hostage who was released during the January 2025 ceasefire with Hamas.Gonen, who was 23 at the time of her abduction, was taken hostage by Hamas terrorists during the Nova music festival near Kibbutz Re’im on October 7th, 2023.Wounded during the October 7th invasion, Gonen was repeatedly sexually harassed while in captivity and was raped or sexually assaulted by four of her captors, including one incident during which she was threatened at gunpoint.In previous segments of the interview aired in late December, Gonen revealed details of the assaults, as well as her fears afterwards that she might have been pregnant after she lost her period.In the portion of the interview aired on Thursday, Gonen explained the timing of her public statements revealing the sexual assaults, stating that she felt compelled to remain silent until all of the living hostages were returned, citing demands by the most senior Hamas official in Gaza.Gonen said that for 35 days of her 471-day captivity, she and a second female hostage were used as human shields by Izz al-Din al-Haddad, commander of Hamas’ military wing and leader of the terrorist group in Gaza following the killing of Mohammed Sinwar last May.During the first Gaza ceasefire, reached in November 2023, al-Haddad offered to put Gonen on the top of the list of hostages to be released in any subsequent deals with Israel, while demanding that she remain quiet regarding the rapes she endured in captivity.When she and two other captives were set to be returned to Israel during the January 2025 ceasefire, al-Haddad personally accompanied Gonen and the other hostages, telling her that he expected her not to reveal the sexual assaults once she was back in Israel.“He said, ‘Do you remember our promise? Here, you’re going out first.’ And then he said, ‘Do you remember your promise to me? I hope you fulfill it,'” Gonen recalled.“I told him, ‘I’ll fulfill the promise,’ and we went our separate ways for eternity, thank God.”For the next nine months, Gonen refrained from speaking out on the sexual abuse, fearing that if she revealed the assaults, al-Haddad would have the remaining hostages punished as a form of reprisal.Once the last of the living hostages were returned in October, and with all but one of the bodies of the slain hostages handed over, Gonen decided to go public with the sexual assaults.Of her former captor, Gonen said “He is smart, unexpected, and God-willing, we will kill him.”The post ‘Hamas commander offered me deal to buy my silence,’ says former hostage appeared first on World Israel News.