When Emily Damari was abducted from Kibbutz Kfar Aza on October 7, her mother didn’t find out whether she was alive or dead for 11 days. As she awaited news, Mandy Damari has said, she wasn’t sure which she feared most, knowing the horrors her daughter would likely experience as a captive of Hamas in Gaza.

She still can’t know all the horrors, and she may never know the full extent, but on Sunday, January 19, Mandy Damari became one of the three lucky mothers to get their daughters back. The young women—Damari, Doron Steinbrecher and Romi Gonen—were the first hostages released in the newly signed hostage and cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas.

We can only imagine those tearful and joyous reunions between the daughters and their mothers, the first family members to greet their offspring when they arrived in Israel. For now, as their privacy is being protected, we are only seeing snapshots of those first embraces as the women who had been held for 15 months made their way upon entering Israel first to an army base and then to a hospital in Tel Aviv for what is likely to be at least several days of evaluation.

We do, however, know how relentless Damari and the other hostage mothers have been in their quest to obtain the release of their loved ones. Damari, a dual Israeli and British citizen who had been rescued from her home on Kfar Aza by one of her sons on the day of the attacks, has spent more than a year in meetings in Israel and around the world, pleading for action that would lead to the release of Emily and the other hostages.

Emily was supposed to have been released in November or December 2023 as part of the first hostage deal that was never completed. In a meeting last May with an I Believe Israeli Women delegation, which I was a part of, Damari reported how certain she had been during that first deal that her daughter was coming home soon.

One of the hostages released by Hamas in that first group reported that Emily was O.K., that she had been shot, but it was not life threatening and she had had some sort of surgery. The second group of hostages that soon followed had just been with Emily, Damari learned. Her daughter was apparently so certain she would be released soon that she didn’t even give them a letter to take home.

That was 14 months ago.

On Sunday, the family made public—and they released photos that confirmed it—that Emily had lost two fingers from the gunshot wounds she had suffered on the day of the Hamas attacks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The next day, Damari released a statement saying, “Yesterday, I was finally able to give Emily the hug that I have been dreaming of.”

“Emily is doing much better than any of us could ever have anticipated,” she said. In Emily’s own words, “she is the happiest girl in the world; she has her life back.”

Still, Damari added, asking for privacy: “As wonderful as it is to see Emily’s resilience, these are still early days ” and  “she now needs time with her loved ones and her doctors as she begins her road to recovery.”

She thanked everyone for their support but urged continued vigilance until the rest of the hostages are released. “In this incredibly happy moment for our family, we must also remember that 94 other hostages still remain. The ceasefire must continue and every last hostage must be returned to their families.”

Lisa Hostein is the executive editor of Hadassah Magazine.