For almost four months of her 471 days in captivity, Emily Damari was incarcerated in the Hamas terror tunnels under Gaza, where the stench of human waste permeated the fetid wet air and the floor crawled with cockroaches.
Throughout it all she was in constant, searing pain after gunmen shot off two of her fingers the day she was kidnapped on October 7, 2023, while the remains of another bullet was lodged in her right leg.
But there was something even worse than the hunger, the stench, the pain and the lice that infested their clothes and hair: the cages.
Describing for the first time the inhumane practice in which they were treated like animals, Emily says: 'Sometimes there would be up to six of us at a time, squeezed in a tiny cage just two metres by two metres.'
The 29-year-old was finally freed alongside 32 fellow hostages in a ceasefire deal in January and propelled to international fame after an image of her posing defiantly with her wounded hand went viral – a symbol of freedom and courage.
Ever since she has tried to rebuild her life as she undergoes multiple complex surgeries on her fingers and to remove the bullet from her leg.
But today, the only Israeli hostage with dual British citizenship bravely takes the Daily Mail back to her harrowing time in Gaza in a world exclusive newspaper interview from her new home near Tel Aviv, Israel.
The last place Emily wants to return to is the tunnels. But she reveals the full horrors of what she suffered there for one reason: while she got out, there are others who still remain.
These include her best friends, twin brothers Gali and Ziv Berman, 27, with whom she was snatched from their kibbutz, before being separated in the early days of captivity.
FULL ARTICLE AT: https://mol.im/a/14940829 via https://dailym.ai/android
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