Mother of British Hamas hostage: 'Soon there will be nothing left of my heart - or her'
Exactly one year after Hamas terrorists launched a cross-border killing spree on Isreal Briton Emily Damari, 28, remains missing and is feared to be holed up deep underground in Gaza with her condition unknown.
The despairing mother of the only British hostage left in Gaza said: “Soon there will be nothing left of my heart - or her.”
Exactly one year ago when Hamas launched a cross-border killing spree on Israel Emily Damari, 28, was snatched by gun-toting terrorists from her home of Kibbutz Kfar Aza near the Gaza border.
Her beloved golden cockapoo Choocha was shot dead while the bloody-thirsty ambush left her with a gunshot wound to the hand.
Her mum Mandy, 63, a nursery school teacher, said: “It is breaking my heart a little more, day by day. Soon there will be nothing left of my heart - or Emily.”
Heartbroken Mandy, who has spent the past year travelling the world lobbying for Emily’s release, penned a letter to her daughter which she passed to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer in the hope he might be able to act.
It said: “Dear Emily. I hope this note gets to when you are alive and home with me, Abba (Hebrew for daddy) and all your family. And you'll see that we are all alive.
“If it gets to you in Gaza know that we all love you and miss you and are sick with worry about what is happening to you every day and we are praying and meeting whoever we can to get you back home.
“Please keep strong, keep praying and just be your beautiful self that I love to the moon and back. You will come home. And I promise that I'll never complain again about your perfume sticking to me when you're home.
“Love you so much. Your Mum (who is always right!).”
The fate of Emily remains unknown but she is believed to be imprisoned alongside 100 other captives in a network of subterranean tunnels used by the terrorists inside Gaza.
Emily, the youngest of four siblings, was captured and bundled over the border on October 7 from her home on Kibbutz Kfar Azza, where she was born and raised, alongside twin brothers Ziv and Gali Berman, 27. Emily remains somewhere in the Gaza Strip, hidden in an underground tunnel.
Her family said her “unforgettable smile and cheeky, dry sense of humour lights up every room she enters - the consummate daughter, sister, and friend”.
Mrs Damari was born in Surrey and grew up in Beckenham, Kent, before visiting Israel in her 20s. It was there she met Emily's father while volunteering.
She said: “Released hostages reported her bravery, courage and laughter below ground, raising spirits and providing help and support in impossible circumstances. Every morning in the tunnels, she led the girls in a song called Boker Shel Kef - translated as ‘it’s a great morning’. We worry Emily is no longer singing. Over the last 12-months while in captivity enduring unimaginable horrors, she has missed birthdays, weddings and the births of friends’ and family’s children. She even missed her grandfather’s death in London earlier this year.”
The appalling incursion into Israel triggered the biggest mass slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust. Masked terrorists killed 1,200 men, women and children in cold blood.
Earlier today she spoke at an event in Hyde Park, London, to mark the anniversary of the massacre.
Imploring the world to act to secure her daughter’s release she said: “Everyone here needs to use every ounce of influence they have and must advocate to those in power for the release of the hostages.
“Emily, my daughter, is a young British woman, but no one mentions the fact there is a British hostage imprisoned in Gaza by Hamas for a year.
“Every day is a living nightmare not knowing what torture Emily is going through. I know from people who have come back that the hostages are being starved, sexually abused and tortured.
“Those in power need to be doing everything they can to secure Emily’s release and all of the other British related hostages and I am sure we do not have to remind them of their responsibilities, but unfortunately we do need to remind them to acknowledge publicly that they still have a young woman, who is a British citizen, held hostage by Hamas in danger of her life and every second she is held there is a second too long.”
She added: “Diplomatic pressure, negotiations, humanitarian efforts - whatever it takes.
“We cannot let another day pass.
“We cannot afford to lose any more lives to this nightmare. We don't need tea and sympathy, we need actions not words.”
