Cages became the defining horror of Emily Damari’s captivity beneath Gaza, as she described in a harrowing interview with the Daily Mail.
For nearly four months out of her 471 days held by Hamas, Damari and other hostages were forced into cramped, stifling cages –sometimes six people at a time in a space just two meters by two meters (6.56 feet by 6.56 feet).
“The cages were the worst,” Damari recounted, recalling the unbearable heat, humidity, and the floors crawling with cockroaches. “The silence murders the ears… You go crazy in it,” she said.
Damari, 29, was shot and badly wounded during her abduction from her home Kibbutz Kfar Aza on October 7, 2023. Her dog was killed in the attack. Despite losing fingers and carrying a bullet in her leg, she endured constant pain, hunger and degrading conditions – including being allowed to use the bathroom only once or twice a day in fetid tunnels.
Her ordeal finally ended in January when she was freed as part of a ceasefire, her defiant image with her mutilated hand becoming a symbol of resilience.
Still recovering from her injuries, Damari is determined to draw international attention to those left behind – including her closest friends, twin brothers Gali and Ziv Berman, who were captured by her side and remain in captivity. “They are probably in a cage,” she told the Daily Mail. “They are abusing them… It is probably unimaginably hot for them.”
Damari urged world leaders, including US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to do everything possible to secure the release of the remaining hostages. She said: “You saved my life, now you must do the same for the last 50 hostages. Only then can we start to heal”.
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