Former Israeli hostage Emily Damari returns to Kfar Aza seeking to 'close the circle'

The courage displayed by the returning hostages has amazed many both in Israel and overseas. Emily Damari brandishing her bandaged hand with two fingers shot off by Hamas has become something of a national icon. Now she has bravely ventured back to the scene of her own abduction, hoping to find some closure.

Hamas terrorists broke through the Gaza border and burst into Kibbutz Kfar Aza where Emily and her family lived. They killed her dog and kidnapped her from her home along with 250 others in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. 

Throughout the 15 months she was held in captivity, there were no signs of life at all before Damari, the only British citizen in captivity, was released.

Damari’s mother, Mandy, met with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and told him, “Hamas held Emily at UNRWA facilities and denied her access to medical treatment after she was shot twice,” according to her post on 𝕏. She added, “It’s a miracle that she survived."

After going to visit her own personal ground zero, she explained in an Instagram post, “Today I returned to my home, to my apartment, to the oxygen I had that was nearly gone. I returned to the place where all my nightmares began, 485 days ago, and I have closed only part of the circle that I so longed to close.” 

According to Ynet News, Emily’s brother posted a picture of his sister and Romi Gonen who accompanied her on the visit, alongside a picture of Aviv Baram, a friend who was killed on Oct. 7, 2023, Tom Damari wrote:

“Emily came today to close a circle – to conquer her personal victory and return to the place where she was kidnapped by the monsters of Hamas. She returned there with her family and accompanied by someone who joined our family and became an inseparable part of it, Romi Gonen. Romi and Emily became one, and it’s so amazing to see.”

Romi Gonen had posted the words, “sister in captivity” below Emily's post.

Appreciating the close connection forged between the women, Tom wrote: “Their unspoken understanding, eye to eye – sometimes without uttering a word. There was a moment during this complicated day when my heart truly clenched. Emily and Romi sat on a bench beneath the olive trees by the arms depot, with Aviv Baram’s picture in front of them."

“This moment was so complete, yet at the same time so empty. That’s exactly how the prisoner swap agreement feels. It is a great joy to see our captives returning, and a sick feeling in my stomach to see buses of lowly murderers being released. I am so sorry for what you are going through and for the unimaginable loss; I truly hope that as a people we become worthy of them and of you," Damari continued.

Fellow hostage, Amit Soussana, also talked about the same yearning to “close the circle” in an interview with Tablet Magazine after her release last year. When asked about her dream of the future, Soussana responded, “It might sound a bit cliché, but we always talked about being in the yard of one of the young hostages’ houses. She always described how it looked, with an olive tree in the yard. We would have a meal together, all the families united. It would be the closing of the circle: Everyone would bring the dish we had talked about while in captivity, and we’d sit together in that yard. Her father with the tequila and the cigar, and everyone with their families and children. That’s the dream, if you ask me today.”

Soussana, like Damari, has vowed to continue fighting until everyone is brought back home.

Damari wrote: “Like me, there are 79 other hostages who need to complete the circle and are waiting to fill the missing pieces. We must not stop here; we must bring everyone back home – life for the survivors and honor for the fallen. I will feel my true victory only when they all return.”

Liri Albag, a field observer also freed in the hostage release deal added to Emily’s post: "We will fight for everyone through fire and water.”

Damari’s Instagram post showed a banner hung in her old apartment with her face accompanied by the words: “From this home, Emily Tehila Damari was kidnapped” within the charred scene of destruction. Her caption opens with an emoji of her two-fingered sign of victory and the words, “I’m back.”