Britain’s Israeli hostage has been forgotten, says mother

The mother of the only British-Israeli hostage still held by Hamas in Gaza has asked why Britain is not “fighting every moment to secure her release”.

Emily Damari, 28, was shot and taken from an Israeli kibbutz across the Gaza border on October 7.

Speaking at a memorial event in London marking the attacks a year ago, her mother Mandy Damari said her daughter’s “plight seems to have been forgotten”.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said in a statement that Britain “must stand unequivocally with the Jewish community”.

The dual citizen is among 97 hostages who remain unaccounted for.

Speaking at the Hyde Park memorial, Mandy said: “[Emily] is a daughter of both countries but no one here mentions the fact that there is still a female British hostage held by Hamas for a year now and I sometimes wonder if people even know there is a British woman there.

“Imagine for a moment if Emily was your daughter. Try to imagine what she’s going through.

“Since October 7 last year, she has been held hostage by Hamas terrorists in Gaza’s terror tunnels, 20 meters or more underground, held captive, tortured, isolated, unable to eat, speak or even move without someone else’s permission.”

The audience heard how Emily, who was born to her British mother in Israel and lived there, loved visiting Britain – her “second home across the sea”. She loved watching the Spurs playing, going to the pub, shopping in Primark and had also seen Ed Sheeran in concert, her mother said.

Mandy pleaded with Britain and other countries to do more to secure the release of her daughter and the other hostages.

“How is it that she is still imprisoned there after a year? Why is the whole world, especially Britain, not fighting every moment to secure her release? She is one of their own.”

She said some of the women and children who were released in the hostage deal in November told her that Emily was alive then, and talked about how she helped the other hostages try to stay positive even in the worst of times.

“Every day is hell not knowing what Emily is going through. I know from the hostages who returned that they were starved, sexually abused and tortured. Every moment lost is another moment of unimaginable suffering or even death.”

BBC News has approached the UK Foreign Office for comment.

Other hostages with British relatives detained include Eli Sharabi, Oded Lifschitz and Avinatan Or. British-Israeli Nadav Popplewell was also kidnapped on October 7 and his body was found by Israeli soldiers in Gaza in August.

Families of Israeli hostages met Sir Keir and Foreign Secretary David Lammy on Monday and urged them to “do more” to bring them home.

The Prime Minister agreed that the hostages must be freed and returned immediately, it was said at a subsequent press conference.

On Sunday, he said the country must “unequivocally” stand with the Jewish community and described October 7 as the “darkest day in Jewish history since the Holocaust”.

“As a father, husband, son, brother – meeting the families of those who lost loved ones last week was unimaginable. Their grief and pain is ours and it is shared in homes across the country,” Sir Keir said.

He also reiterated his call for ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon.

The Hyde Park event, organized by the Board of British Jews and other groups, was attended by thousands of British Jews and supporters of Israel, who waved British and Israeli flags with chants of “bring them home”.

Among the crowd, many of whom have family and friends in Israel, there was disbelief that the hostages had still not been freed a year on.

Israel’s ambassador to the UK, Tzipi Hotovely, told the crowd: “We will do what we can to bring them home.”

Michael Wegier, chief executive of the Board of British Jews, told BBC News: “The British Jewish community is traumatized, as is much of the Jewish community around the world, particularly in Israel.

“There are 30,000 Jews from the UK who live in Israel. Many of us have friends and family there and we go there and so we take what happens there very deeply and very personally.”

On Saturday tens of thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters marched through central London calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and an end to the escalating conflict in the Middle East.

Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to the unprecedented attack on southern Israel on October 7 by Hamas gunmen, in which around 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage.

At least 41,870 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.