The mother of former Hamas hostage Emily Damari is planning to return to the kibbutz where her daughter was abducted on October 7, despite Emily’s warning that the terrorists have vowed to strike again.
British-born Mandy Damari has lived for 35 years on Kfar Aza, less than a mile from Gaza, where Hamas terrorists murdered 64 residents and abducted 19 during the October 7 massacre. In an interview with The Sunday Times, she said she intends to return to the kibbutz sometime in 2027. Her house is still being restored and currently has neither electricity nor running water.
Her daughter Emily was released after 471 days in captivity.
Mandy spent hours alone in a dark shelter during the attack and has no memory of some events, including a wounded Israeli soldier dying inside her home.
Before the massacre, life on the kibbutz was “95 per cent heaven”, she recalled, despite two decades of intermittent rocket attacks.
When she first moved there, no fence separated the kibbutz from Gaza, and Palestinians continued coming to work there until October 7. Over time, increasingly elaborate border fences were installed, while the kindergarten where she taught was progressively reinforced against rockets.
“Nobody in their wildest dreams ever thought that something like October 7 would happen. I think that’s partly why I’m moving back, because I still can’t get my head around it. It is so terrible, the destruction on the kibbutz and what happened there, that you look at it and you just can’t believe it.”
Three years later, only about 50 families have returned to the kibbutz, which was home to 350 families before the massacre. Many families with young children and those who lost relatives are reluctant to return. A new kindergarten has been built for Kfar Aza’s traumatised children, offering specialised psychological care and speech therapy.
Mandy acknowledged that Hamas remains armed and that her daughter fears another attack.
When she told Emily of her plans, she replied: “You’re mad. They’re going to come back.”
Emily said her captors repeatedly warned that they would return to attack Israelis again.
Mother and daughter are also upset that the kibbutz voted to rebuild Emily’s destroyed apartment rather than preserve it as a memorial. Residents said they “didn’t want to live in Auschwitz”, Mandy recalled.
Mandy remains uncertain whether returning is the right decision.
“All I know is that, some time in 2027, I will go back and see what it’s like. See if it’s like a ghost town, or if the ghosts come to visit me in my house, because there were so many people murdered around me.”
But she is determined not to surrender her home.
“The terrorists took so much. I don’t want them to take any more.”
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