On October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists attacked Emily’s home, shot her in the hand, murdered her friends, killed her pet dog Choocha, and kidnapped her into Gaza amid the largest slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust. Aside from accounts from other hostages freed just six weeks later that she had lice and was living in filth, forced to use a bucket as a toilet – and a single sign of life last year – there has been no word. ‘It’s a nightmare, living a life like this,’ said Mrs Damari, the softly spoken mother who has travelled to the ends of the earth, meeting international powerbrokers, to fight for her daughter’s return.
