British-Israeli Emily, 29, was kidnapped from Kibbutz Kfar Aza on October 7th 2023 and held captive in Gaza for 471 days. During her kidnapping, terrorists shot Damari in the left hand, leading to the loss of two fingers. Another bullet hit her right leg after fatally hitting her dog Choocha. In captivity, she was a morale-booster to the other hostages, often negotiating with captors on their collective behalf and demanding better treatment. During an intense lice-outbreak, she organised a lice competition to pass the time. Her captors gave her the nicknames ‘Shejaiya,’ (‘heroes’ in Arabic) and ‘John Cena from WWE,’ after the American professional wrestler and actor.
Newly engaged to the love of her life, social media influencer Danielle Amit, Emily has launched a capsule collection named ÉMILY, in collaboration with Israeli fashion retailer Story, to commemorate one year of freedom from Hamas captivity.
Emily Damari has got engaged and launched her own clothing line since her release (Picture: Shai Franco)[Missing Credit]
"Freedom has completely changed the way I see life. I have so much more value for everything I do. Today, I open the fridge and I say thank you. I drink cold water and I say thank you. I am thankful for everything, big things and little things. Gratitude has become central to who I am. I was thankful before, but now it is on a completely different level.
What I went through taught me not to take anything for granted. One day in captivity feels like one week. You want to give up at every moment, but I did not. My faith gave me strength, and I was thankful that I was never alone. There is being in Gaza and there is being alone in Gaza. I was always with other hostages, and that mattered.
Coming home to Israel, I appreciate not only the country, but the people.
After the attack, there were those who thought we would bow our heads and stay silent – they were wrong. We are a people who have been attacked for thousands of years and we are still standing. That strength, that unity, and that sense of responsibility for one another is what I am most grateful for today.
Being free, at home, surrounded by my family and my people is something I will never take for granted again.
The idea for my clothing brand came to me just a few weeks after my release. My best friend, Inbar, welcomed me home with a cap he had made especially for me. On the front was a symbol of my hand, something deeply personal. When I saw it, I immediately fell in love with it. It wasn’t just a gift; it felt like identity, strength, and survival stitched into fabric. That moment planted a seed. A few months later, I decided to explore the idea more seriously. I sat down with close friends, and together we began imagining what this brand could become, not just clothing, but something meaningful. Something that carries a story.
Eventually, we met with Story, a leading multi-brand retail chain in Israel. They were immediately excited about the concept and eager to collaborate. After months of conversations, design, reflection, and careful consideration, the collection slowly took shape. Nine months later, we launched our first small collection. The creative process became more than just a business project. It became part of my healing. Creating something from pain, and turning it into something people can wear, helped me manage my trauma and gave me a renewed sense of purpose. Today, the collection is available exclusively in Story stores across Israel. My hope is to expand internationally in the near future. All proceeds from the sales go toward supporting my future and my rehabilitation journey.
Recently, I got engaged to love of my life, Danielle Amit. She has been the most amazing person in my life. She has supported me so much over this last year, and I am really grateful to have her by my side. After everything that happened against my will – becoming a public figure overnight and my injured hand turning into a symbol – what I want most now is something simple and meaningful. Danni understands this deeply. She is also a public figure and knows how complicated and overwhelming it can be to live life in the public eye. And maybe because of that, we both want the same thing, something simple. I want to build a home. I want to build a family. I want to be a good mother to my children one day. To build something warm, safe and full of love, that feels very powerful to me now.
My British roots are a huge part of who I am. My mum Mandy is from England and my dad is Israeli. My mum came to Israel when she was young, she met my dad on Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha and decided to build her life there. A few years later, they moved to Kibbutz Kfar Aza, where I grew up, but she always made sure that Britain remained part of our family story.
Growing up, we travelled regularly to England to see my grandparents, cousins and extended family. Those visits meant a lot to me and helped shape my identity. Britain has always felt like a second home, not just somewhere we visited, but somewhere we belonged. I am even a lifelong Tottenham supporter, which I think says a lot about how strong that connection is.
To know that the British Jewish community carried me and my family in their hearts during that time is something I will never forget. It reminded me that wherever we are in the world, we are connected, and that sense of unity and care is something I will always be grateful for.”
Doron Steinbrecher says this year she'll finally be able to celebrate Pesach properly (Picture: Doron Steinbrecher)[Missing Credit]
DORON STEINBRECHER
Doron Steinbrecher, 33, was kidnapped from her bedroom in Kibbutz Kfar Aza on October 7th 2023. After shooting at her bed and narrowly missing her head, terrorists found her hiding under two laundry baskets. Seconds before her abduction, she sent a harrowing voice note to a friend, in which she uttered the words: “They caught me, they caught me, they caught me”. There are shouts in Arabic in the background. Terrorists drove her into Gaza, where she spent 471 days in captivity in harrowing conditions. Doron was released in January 2025, in chaotic scenes alongside Emily Damari and Romi Gonen.
“For me now, the meaning of the word freedom is actually ‘free choice,’ or ‘the freedom to choose’. It’s the ability to choose what I want to eat in the morning or where I want to go; what I want to wear or how many times a day I want to shower. The simple option to pick up my phone and call a family member or a friend.
Last Passover was only three months after I was released from captivity and I hadn’t even started processing what I'd been through and where I was.
This year, I’ll get to really celebrate the holiday with my family and not just mention it like last year. Last year I didn't feel any holiday atmosphere – I couldn't stop thinking about all the hostages left behind, like my friends Ziv and Gali Berman who were still there.
Now, knowing that no more hostages are left in Gaza makes me able to accept, appreciate and enjoy my family being all together around the table without any guilt hovering above us. That is freedom.”
Aviva with her husband Keith, who was also kidnapped from their home in Kibbutz Kfar Aza (Picture: Seigel family)[Missing Credit]
AVIVA SIEGEL
Aviva Siegel, 64, originally from South Africa, was kidnapped from her home in Kibbutz Kfar Aza on October 7 alongside her husband Keith, and driven into Gaza in their own car. While in captivity, she was held in 13 different locations, including a tunnel 40m underground, where oxygen was so scarce that she struggled to breathe.
Food was almost non-existent and Siegel witnessed many acts of physical and sexual violence against the younger female hostages. She was separated from Keith during the first release deal in November 2023 and returned to Israel after 51 days. Relieved to discover that her son, Shai, had survived the October 7 massacre, and fuelled by the love of her three children and five grand-children, Aviva campaigned tirelessly for the release of all the remainng hostages, meeting with world leaders and giving evidence at the UN Committee against Torture in Geneva. Finally, her beloved Keith came home in February 2025 – released after 484 days as a Hamas hostage.
“So many things to do freedom now are connected to what I went through in captivity. The non-freedom that I had in Gaza has led me to realise how lucky I am that I can decide things for myself now.
It’s small things, like do I want to make a cup of tea? Am I going to put milk in or not? If I want to go to see my grandchildren I just do it. And then if I want to leave, I can leave. I’m free just to do what I want to do. When I wake up, I can lie in bed and decide that I’m going to stay there, or I can get up. I can move and I can walk and I can just sit and do whatever I want to – it’s a lovely, lovely freedom.
I think that one of the biggest freedoms apart from being with my family, and of course being with Keith, more anything else, is nature. Looking at the moon, I have a smile. I can enjoy the sun or just stand in the rain and take it in. The air – when there’s good air, I’ll say to myself how much I feel this lovely air going inside my body and I breathe it in. Taking a glass of water and drinking it – it heals me. And of course being with my kids and my sisters.
But saying that, I also don’t feel that I’m quite free to do whatever I want to, whenever I want to, because I’m not mentally free yet. I’ve got this heaviness because of what I went through. I’ve feel this heaviness when I look at Keith and I think ‘Oh, that’s the leftovers of what he went through in Gaza, that’s why he’s behaving like that.’ So it’s complicated. The word freedom has changed me as a person – the way I look at things, how I feel and how I want to feel.
Keith and I haven’t really started to feel free when it comes to holidays, or trips overseas. We’re still very connected to what we went through. We’re talking in different places to different people about what happened and that keeps it alive. In February, we went to a refugee camp called Kakuma in Kenya for ISRAID – an Israeli organisation that provides water and education for people all over the world. We went to see what was going on there and help raise money. We spoke about our experiences in Gaza and seeing the 300,000 people there broke my heart. I think I should have waited a couple of years to go. I’m very sensitive and it wasn’t easy but I wanted to help people who are suffering, just like I suffered. When altitude sickness hit and turned into anxiety, I had to use some of the strategies I used in Gaza to stay calm. I sang to myself: ‘One, two, buckle my shoe,’ and I counted slowly up to 10. Those days are still very much with me.
I see other former hostages taking pictures in Thailand – I can see them having fun – but we haven’t started having fun yet. Keith and I are, in many ways, unable to disconnect ourselves from what happened, even though there are moments where we can laugh and be happy. It’s easier when we’re in a group.
When Gali and Ziv and the other 20 hostages that were alive came back, it was a moment when I could put aside that sadness that I had in me. I was the saddest person on earth knowing they were there and suffering. When Keith came home in February 2025, it was the best moment in the world, but it was also a very difficult time because the hostages he was with – Ziv, Gali, Matan and Omri – stayed in Gaza, and I could feel the sadness in Keith. So we would talk about it and cry. We cried so many times. I still cry when I talk about it.
But yes, I feel different – completely and utterly different – now that I don’t have to fight for anybody that’s in Gaza. They’re all here. I breathe differently, everything about my whole day is completely and utterly different. But I still worry about Keith, even though he’s home.
I also worry about my kids, the grandchildren, my sisters, Keith’s family – I’m more worried about people than I was before. I want to over-protect them, I don’t want them to hurt. When Keith’s sad, it’s very, very hard for me. When he eats, it gives me so much pleasure. I was like this a little bit before but now it’s extreme. When I make something tasty, I drive him crazy to eat it because I want him to be happy. There’s a little scar left from that period of time. I know I can’t feel like I’m a free person until I’m able to put the things that I went through – both as a person in Gaza, and as a person worrying about Keith and the girls that we were with – aside.
As a nation, we often talk about how hard the past two years were, but I think it’s not quite ‘was’ yet.
I’m sure people in Israel will experience this Pesach in a different way to Pesach last year, but you can’t say ‘Hocus-Pocus’ and make it pass. Yes, all the living hostages are eating with their families around the table, and that’s really, really incredible. We can be free of feeling bad. I’m sure it will really affect people when we read ‘Let the people go!’ – we understand what it really means. We too have let the heaviness of the hostages, and their suffering, go. But for me it’s a journey. Maybe if you talk to me next year about freedom – let’s hope I’ll be able to feel like a freer person. Much, much, much more free. In the mean time I take energy from the people around me, and of course, from Keith, who is always there for me. Just looking at him and knowing he’s alive and here is a lot of my healing. Keith. Water. Air. The grandchildren. My family – they are my freedom this Passover.”
For Danielle Aloni, the word 'freedom' no longer feels abstract (Picture: Aloni family)[Missing Credit]
DANIELLE ALONI
Danielle Aloni, 46, and her young daughter Emilia, were on Kibbutz Nir Oz visiting her sister Sharon Aloni Cunio, when the community was overrun by terrorists on October 7. After sheltering in the Cunio family’s safe room, Danielle became convinced she was going to die, leaving a message for her family saying: “They are burning our home, terrorists have come in, they tried to shoot us. We are being burned in the home. If we go out they will shoot us.” Yet when they opened the window out of desperation, a group of terrorists helped them climb out, before kidnapping Danielle, Emilia and six other members of the Israeli-Argentine Cunio family to Gaza. In captivity, Danielle and Emilia shared a damp, foul-smelling mattress and were held in rancid conditions. At one point, she had a serious panic attack in the underground tunnels, during which she was comforted by Yarden Bibas, who had been separated from his family during his own kidnapping from Kibbutz Nir Oz.
“Two years after October 7, the word freedom no longer feels abstract to me. It is not a slogan, not a political concept, not even a national aspiration. It is deeply personal.
I emerged after 49 days from what I call my private captivity. Physically, I was free. But freedom did not truly arrive that day. Because while I had stepped out of one form of captivity, we as a family — and as a nation — entered another. The struggle to bring home those who remained behind became its own kind of imprisonment. Every hour was measured by absence. Every moment of daily life carried the weight of those who were not yet home.
For a long time, freedom felt partial. Conditional. Incomplete. Today, with everyone finally back, something inside me has shifted. Only now do I understand the full meaning of freedom — not as survival, but as restoration.
Freedom, for me, is the ability to move without fear. To travel without calculating risks. To choose without hesitation. To sit at a table and eat well without guilt. To laugh — freely, fully — without feeling that joy betrays someone still waiting.
Freedom is found in ordinary moments: a walk outside, a shared meal, quiet sleep, spontaneous plans. It is the return of lightness to the body and breath to the chest. And with this freedom, I live my life in gratitude.
I wake each morning thankful for my health, for the simple privilege of smiling, of embracing the people I love. This journey has taught me to value what once seemed obvious — the small, everyday moments we assume will always be there. I now understand that they are not guaranteed at all. Each ordinary day is, in truth, an extraordinary gift. Two years ago, freedom was about getting out. Today, freedom is about being able to live. And that difference changes everything.”
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