Emily Damari opens up about abuse experience in captivity, suicide pact with fellow hostage

Emily Damari told the Daily Mail about her suicide pact with Romi Gonen, and the abuses she experienced in Hamas captivity.

British-Israeli former hostage Emily Damari revealed in a Friday interview with the Daily Mail that one of her captors treated her so cruelly that she considered suicide.

“They were the worst people,” she said. “The worst family. They would make fun of us and laugh at us. They would tell us: ‘Nobody cares about you.’ They would hide food from us and tell us we were never leaving Gaza.”

Explaining that she had made a suicide pact with Romi Gonen, the pair had decided to either escape or end their lives to escape the cruelty.

To avoid that fate, Damari recounted how she grabbed the guard who had demonstrated the least cruelty and told him that if the pair weren’t moved, “you are going to have two dead hostages.”

Despite the guard, a commander in the terror group, promising to move them, they remained in the family’s control for months. Despite the hopeless situation, Damari said she had a premonition they would soon be released and instructed Gonen to style her eyebrows, and she shaved her legs in preparation for their return to freedom.

From the moment she was taken on October 7

From the moment that Damari was taken on October 7, she recounted how she would rather die than be kidnapped and made a hostage.

When terrorists abducted her from her home, along with her friend Gali Berman, a terrorist shot off several of her fingers while killing her dog Choocha.

When the terrorist told her he would take her to the hospital, Damari recounted how she “understood this was not going to be an Israeli hospital” and told him, “No, no, no, shoot me!’ I didn’t want to be kidnapped, I would prefer to die.”

“I took his gun, put it to my head and said: ‘Shoot me! Shoot me!” she told the Daily Mail, explaining she only went quietly once the terrorist placed a gun to her friend’s head.

After being transported to Gaza and separated from Gali, she was taken to Al-Shifa Hospital and told by terrorists she was more valuable to them alive than dead.

‘Dr. Hamas’

A doctor introduced himself as “Dr. Hamas” and then amputated her damaged fingers under general anaesthetic, then stitched the nerves in her hand together, causing her significant pain.

After the amputation, she explained she was taken to the home of a terrorist and housed along with Gali’s brother Ziv, the wife of the terrorist, and their six children. One of the children, only 14 years old, carried a gun, she recounted.

While she stayed in that house, she was only allowed to shower once and was not given a change of clothes.
Ziv Berman and Damari were later moved after the house was hit in an airstrike.

“I thought I was in heaven,” Damari said. “I saw one big fireball, and then I didn’t see anything anymore. Everywhere was dust.”

After 40 days with Ziv, the two were separated, and she was transported while disguised in traditional clothes. She was taken into a “city” of tunnels to a small cage containing five female hostages, including an eight-year-old girl.

“It was stinky, hot, humid, and damp. You don’t get used to it,” Damari said, describing how the walls were covered in cockroaches. “They let you go to the bathroom once or twice a day – you have a hole in the ground. It stinks…There is no running water, just a gallon jug with water in it.”

Hiding her sexuality

“We were totally surrounded by terrorists. Five girls. They have weapons. They are stronger than you. They can do whatever they like, whenever they like,” Damari said, explaining that she had to hide her sexuality. “I hid that about myself because I knew it was worse than them knowing I was Jewish or Israeli – they would kill me.”

She described how the terrorists would probe her as to why she wasn’t married, and she would explain away the questions by saying she had three protective brothers.

Throughout her time in captivity, Damari probed guards back and on one occasion asked a terrorist what he would do if he discovered his brother was gay. She said the guard responded that he would “kill him” because “he’s sick.”

After three months in the tunnels, Damari explained she was moved and would stay in 30 different locations.

Terrorists would use dash cams as makeshift security cameras to monitor them and leave them in explosive-laden homes so they would be killed if the IDF attempted to rescue them.

While Damari was relocated repeatedly, she remained with Gonen, and the duo developed a close bond. Gonen, who was shot in the arm, and Damari would support each other with tasks made difficult by their respective wounds.

One guard nicknamed Damari ‘John Cena,’ after the famous WWE wrestler, because she would complete between 400-600 sit-ups every morning despite the harsh conditions.

“The terrorists would call me Sajaya, it means you are very confident, very strong,” she recalled. “I did everything just to survive. If they sat with me now and I could kill them – of course, I would be happy to do it.”

At one point, she convinced a guard to give her his gun. While she discussed with her fellow captives killing the terrorist, she knew that would seal their deaths. She said that while she didn’t care about the impact it might have on her, she did not want to endanger the others.

While Damari is now free, she said her greatest “greatest hope is that Gali and Ziv will have that experience too.”

“They are probably in a cage,” she told the Daily Mail. “They are abusing them. There isn’t a lot of water. It is probably unimaginably hot for them.”