EXCLUSIVE 'I had a plan to do it': Chilling confession of freed British-Israeli hostage Emily Damari who revealed that she had planned her own suicide during 471 'terrible' days in Gaza captivity

Daily Mail​

01-06-2025

Freed British-Israeli hostage Emily Damari has revealed how she fought a Hamas guard and planned her own suicide during 471 'terrible' days held in Gaza.
The 28-year-old has spoken for the first time on how she was held in houses booby trapped with dynamite and in terror tunnels so silent 'it murders the ears'.
Emily, who lost two fingers on October 7 when terrorists shot her hand, also concealed that she has had relationships with women from the Islamist extremists fearing they would kill her if they found out.
Incredibly, she earned the respect of her captors who dressed her in a hijab and snuck her onto the roof of a Gaza apartment to glimpse the sea during a terrifying bombardment.
It comes as the IDF released haunting 'trophy pictures' they found on a Hamas hard drive that the terror group took of Emily during surgery in Gaza on the day she was kidnapped.
She is seen unconscious on an operating table in Al-Shifa Hospital with blood splatters across a hijab she was forced to wear.
Another image shows her sat captive in an ankle-length black and white dress, her bloodied left hand bandaged up during her first days held hostage in a Gaza apartment.
Emily was cowering in a bomb shelter with her best friend Gali Berman, 27, at home in Kfar Aza by the Gaza border when Hamas stormed the kibbutz and slaughtered her neighbours.
The terrorists killed Emily's dog, shot her in the hand and leg, and dragged them both into Gaza along with Ziv, Gali's twin brother.
A Palestinian doctor calling himself 'Dr Hamas' then carelessly stitched the nerves in Emily's hand together leaving her in endless pain for over 15 months in captivity.
The British-Israeli reveals her ordeal for the first time to Israeli journalist Yigal Mosko for Channel 12 documentary 'Through Emily's Eyes' which aired last night.
She was hugging her pillow in the shelter with Gali when she heard the terrorists breaking her window before they broke in and shot her left hand.
'The bullet entered and split my fingers,' she said. 'I shouted to him, 'Gali, they destroyed my hand!'
The pain was so extreme she passed out, and came to moments later to the terrorists shouting at her beloved pet Cockapoo Chucha.
'I hear them saying, 'Dog! Dog!' in Arabic. Chucha is sitting, looking at them, and they shoot her. Chucha's bullet is the one that entered my leg.'
Emily was then lifted and carried into her own car, alongside Gali, and they were blindfolded and kidnapped into Gaza.
But the defiant 28-year-old ignored the terrorists and removed her blindfold – to see that Gali's twin brother Ziv is also next to them.
'I say to Zivi, 'Zivi, Gali is with us,' and I say to Gali, 'Gali, Zivi is with us.' Like that a few times, so they would know.'
Emily is then forced to put on 'prayer clothes' and taken to Al Shifa hospital. 'I enter a room with a corpse,' she said. 'I see blood is everywhere. I say, damn, what are they going to do to me here?
'Then the doctor arrives, he says to me: 'Hello, I'm Dr Hamas.' The doctor jabbed a needle in her arm and she fell unconscious, later waking to the man telling her she has lost two fingers – to which all she can muster in response is 'ok'.
Emily turned to find another hostage, Romi Gonen, 24, who had been shot in her right arm fleeing the Nova festival, beside her. They managed a brief introduction before being separated – but they would meet 40 days later and spend the rest of captivity together.
After the surgery, Emily was initially held with Ziv in a family's home in Gaza and was nearly killed when shelling destroyed the house.
They were then moved to a sixth floor apartment, locked in a room with a closed window – but Emily opened it when she saw Israeli drones passed and showed her tattooed arm, hoping they would be able to identify her.
Then, in another truly remarkable act, Emily managed to convince her guard to let her see the sea after about 30 days in captivity.
It shows the strength of personality the British-Israeli has that the terrorists agreed to put her into a hijab she could sneak onto the roof - in the middle of an IDF raid.
'I look, I see the smokestacks of Ashkelon,' Emily said, referring to towns near where she lived. 'I see Sderot, I see Be'eri, I see Kfar Aza, I see everything.
'I see all the explosions, all the smoke…. Gaza burning. Now, above us, really above us, literally above us, like above our heads, are five drones and he tells me: 'Put your hand down, don't point.'
'He gets stressed that I'm pointing. He tells me: 'Put it down, it's forbidden to point.'
'I came down from the roof, and I'm thinking, what just happened to me is unbelievable. I stood with a hijab on a roof in Gaza. There's no way any hostage in the world did that.'
Emily also detailed how each house she was held in was surrounded by cameras, adding that - after the successful rescue of Noa Argamani in June last year - 'came the TNT stage'.
The guards told her that if the IDF came 'we will detonate'. They simply had to add an AA battery into the circuit to blow up the house with dynamite.
She was held with a female hostage at one point who disobeyed the Hamas commander – a former bodyguard for Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
'It reached a point where he pushes her,' Emily said. 'My whole head spun. I started speaking Hebrew, saying: 'What are you doing?'
'I pushed him back. He grabs my hand, I push his hand away. I raised my voice, telling him: 'Now I'm going to shout that there are hostages here! If you don't bring your commander here… Get us out of this house!'
'I really started to completely lose it.'
Asked if she was scared she would get killed, she said: 'No weakness in front of them. I'll push, I'll get a bullet, fine – so I'll die. So I won't be in captivity, thank you very much.'
After 40 days she was separated from Ziv and told: 'You will go to the girls, and we are going underground.' It is the last time she saw Ziv, who remains in captivity with Gali.
Though scared of going underground, Emily was determined to 'not show any weakness in front of them', so, as she was being led into the tunnels, she chose to focus on how incredible it was that she was getting to see the tunnels she had heard so much about.
'I entered like in a frenzy,' she said. 'I'm like, 'Wow, I'm in Hamas' tunnels!' When she met fellow hostages inside, they said: 'You're the first one to enter the tunnels like that.'
But over the coming days, a sense of horror seeped in. 'There's silence in the tunnels,' she said.
'They say deafening silence, but it's not that… It murders the ears. It's terrifying.'
It was here that she met Romi again and they became each other's other half – one having lost use of their left hand, the other their right.
Emily pushed Romi to stop crying and to survive for their families, but there were days when it got too much – and the two girls discussed suicide.
'There were difficult days,' Romi said. Asked if they contemplated suicide, Emily added: 'Sure, I had a plan, everything, how to do it.'
While Emily stayed strong, the thing that nearly broke her was fearing her British mother Mandy, 63, and brother Tom had been killed in Kfar Aza on October 7.
But last summer the terrorists allowed them to watch television one night where Mandy was seen in the Knesset holding a picture of her daughter.
Romi described the moment. 'She got up and said, 'Hey, mum…' Emily was shaking, she couldn't breathe. Really that was the most moving moment in captivity.'
Emily told how she had to conceal the fact that she has had relationships with women in the past.
Asked if she thought they ever knew, she said: 'No. They absolutely must not know such a thing.
'For them, this thing is sick. Anything to do with homosexuality is forbidden. We asked them once, 'If your brother was gay, what would you do?'
'He said: 'What do you mean? I would murder him.'
Emily was constantly quizzed on why she wasn't married, but would tell them she was a 'good girl' and 'saving myself'.
She stayed fit inside by doing sit ups and push ups. Despite a lice infestation, they kept spirits up by holding 'lice fight' where they would bet which would beat the other.
Finally, in January, Emily and Romi were told they were the first to be freed as part of the hostage deal. But Emily, a Macabi Tel Aviv fan, was horrified when her captors told her she had to wear a red outfit to leave – as it is the colour of her rival football team.
'I told him, 'I'm not coming out if I'm wearing red.' In the end, her captors – who had grown to call Emily 'Sajaiya' – a term of respect for heroes – obliged.
Since being freed, Emily has fought to free Gali and Ziv and the remaining 58 hostages – of whom around 20 are believed to be alive.