Don’t forget my daughter, says mother of only British Oct 7 hostage
The mother of the only British hostage still captive in Gaza said her daughter had been forgotten by Britain as she called on the Government to push for her release.
Mandy Damari’s 28-year-old British daughter, Emily, was kidnapped by Hamas terrorists from her village in southern Israel on Oct 7 last year.
On the eve of the first anniversary of the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, Mrs Damari appealed to the Government not to let her daughter or the other 100 innocent people still being held hostage “continue to be tortured or even murdered”.
She said: “I implore those in power here to use every ounce of influence they have to advocate for the release of all the hostages, and to secure the release of their UK citizen.”
No 10 has repeatedly called for a ceasefire in Gaza and for both sides to reach an agreement to release the remaining hostages.
Some 100 hostages are thought to be held in Gaza still as Israel and the world prepares to mark the first anniversary of the kidnappings. Mrs Damari said she feared her daughter had been “forgotten”.
Given her daughter’s dual British-Israeli citizenship, Mrs Damari told the crowd in Hyde Park, central London: “How is it that she is still imprisoned there after one year?
“Why isn’t the whole world, especially Britain, fighting every moment to secure her release? She is one of their own. But her plight seems to have been forgotten.
“I know we could and should be doing more. I, and everyone else has failed her, and the only way to make us all feel whole again is to get Emily and all the 101 hostages back to their families.”
She implored the British public not to forget her “beautiful, charismatic” daughter locked away in Hamas tunnels.
“Emily, is 28 years old, full of life, with dual nationality, British and Israeli. She is a daughter of both countries, but no one here mentions the fact that there is still a female British hostage being held captive by Hamas for a year now, and I sometimes wonder if people even know there is a British woman there,” she said.
In the early hours of Oct 7 Emily was kidnapped from her home of Kibbutz Kfar Aza, a village near the Gaza border, where she was born and raised.
Her beloved golden cockapoo, Choocha, was shot dead in her arms, and she was left with a gunshot wound to the hand.
At the commemorative event in central London organised by leading Jewish community groups, Mrs Damari asked the crowd to “imagine for a moment” that Emily was their daughter.
“Try to picture what she is going through. Since Oct 7 last year, she has been held a hostage by Hamas terrorists in the Gaza terror tunnels, 20 metres or more underground, kept in captivity, tortured, isolated, unable to eat, speak or even move without someone else’s permission. Stripped of every human right. It is almost impossible to comprehend her pain. Yet it is the reality she is living every single day.”
Mrs Damari was born in Surrey and brought up in Beckenham, south London. She told the crowd that she was “raised with the great British ideals of pubs, parties and freedom”.
Emily has British citizenship as it is automatically passed down one generation from Mrs Damari, who feels she has been let down by the British Government.
Mrs Damari told the crowd that the women and children hostages who came back last November, when the last ceasefire deal was reached, said that Emily was alive then.
She says: “They told me that some of them had met her while they were being moved around, some for short periods, some for longer. But they all told me about her bravery and courage and even her laughter and the way she helped hold everyone together even in the worst times. One even said she sang a song every morning called ‘boker shel kef’ – which means ‘it’s a great morning’, despite the darkness.”
But she added: “But who knows? I’m sure she’s not singing now. I keep thinking of the six hostages that were murdered hours before they were discovered by the IDF. About Eden Yerushalmi who weighed just 32 kilos. In the tunnel they were kept in, there was no room to stand up in and hardly any air to breathe, with just a bucket to relieve themselves in.”
She expressed the pain the family was in: “Every day is a living hell, not knowing what Emily is going through. I do know from the hostages that returned that they were starved, sexually abused and tortured.
“Every moment lost is another moment of unimaginable suffering or even death.
“Please, I ask of you all, and also the British government, do not let my daughter Emily Damari or the other innocent people held hostage continue to be tortured or even murdered. I implore those in power here to use every ounce of influence they have to advocate for the release of all the hostages, and to secure the release of their UK citizen.
“We must all stand on the side of humanity, life, justice and freedom and act with urgency and determination to obtain the release of Emily and the other hostages now. Please help us to return them home before it’s too late for them all. We must act now.”
Mrs Damari has also shared a message that she handed to the Prime Minister in Downing Street on Monday.
She hopes the note will reach her daughter when she is “alive and home” with her family, but said that if she reads it 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”.
Mrs Damari goes on to strengthen her daughter’s resolve, writing: “Please keep strong, keep praying and just be your beautiful self that I love to the moon and back.
The heartfelt note ends with a promise to her young daughter: “You will come home. And I promise that I’ll never complain again about your perfume sticking to me when you’re home.”
At the No 10 meeting, the mother instructed Sir Keir Starmer to get the message to Emily by any means possible – and asked the Government to do far more to bring her home.
She also asked that every time the Government mentions the hostages they must mention Emily specifically.
Sunday’s event was organised by the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Jewish Leadership Council, and UJIA – a British charity supporting vulnerable communities in Israel – working with Israel’s embassy in London.