Emily Damari describes children in cages during 471-day Hamas captivity

Standing before an audience at Temple Emanu-El in New York City, former Hamas hostage Emily Damari received a standing ovation before she even began speaking. Released after 471 days in captivity, the 28-year-old survivor spoke to a packed synagogue alongside actress and activist Noa Tishbi and shared the experience that has shaped every minute of her life since October 7.

“It was a very important opportunity for me to share my story and my experience as a hostage of Hamas in Gaza for 471 days,” Damari told Fox News Digital. he said.

‘They shot my hand. ‘They shot my dog.’

HIS RELEASE HOSTAGE REFERS TO ISRAELI FANS BEING BLOCKED FROM FOOTBALL MATCHES IN THE UK DUE TO PRO-PALESTINE PROTESTS

Damari, whose release moment went viral after pushing the terrorist who held him while being transferred to the Red Cross, described the moment he entered the safe room of Hamas terrorists on October 7. His story is almost unbearable to hear, but he still smiled through most of it. He said the refusal to collapse was intentional.

“Even in my most difficult moment, I did not look down. I always looked up. I did not let the terrorists have the pleasure of seeing me broken. They did not break me.”

On October 7, Hamas terrorists raided his home in Kibbutz Kfar Aza. “They were in the safe room and they shot my hand. The first thing they did was they shot my hand.” A few minutes later they killed his dog. “They just look at him… and they immediately shot him in the head.”

As he was dragged towards Gaza, he begged them to end his life there. “I understand that you won’t take me to a hospital in Ashkelon or Tel Aviv… so I say no, no. Please shoot me. I don’t want to be a hostage.”

Instead he was taken across the border.

Emily Damari (right) and her mother Mandy are seen near kibbutz Reim in southern Israel after Emily was released from captivity by Hamas terrorists in Gaza on Sunday, January 19, 2025. (AP/Israeli Army)

He said he “saw many terrorists, dead bodies, hostages and weapons” at the Shifa Hospital in Gaza.

He said one of the most important messages he wants Americans to understand is that what they witnessed at Şifa Hospital, widely described abroad as a civilian medical facility, was wrong.

“This hospital… you always see on Al Jazeera that there’s a civilian hospital or something,” he added. “Just so you know… this is not a civilian hospital.”

“Shifa Hospital was where I was treated by ‘Dr. Hamas’ – that’s how the doctor introduced himself to me – and there I saw a lot of terrorists, dead bodies, hostages and guns. Imagine going to your local hospital and seeing armed terrorists and dead bodies.”

A person walks past images of hostages kidnapped during a deadly attack by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in Gaza on October 7, projected on a screen, in Tel Aviv, Israel, May 31, 2024. (Marko Djurica/ Reuters/File Photo)

It was held in more than 30 different locations (apartments, schools, tunnels, garages and even a tire warehouse) for more than 15 months; there were often days left between showers and almost no water. He slept in cramped, dirty spaces, sometimes in places “without toilets.”

He said the most searing memory came when he was taken deep underground. He was taken to a small cage and saw a group of kidnapped girls. “The first thing you see is a 9-year-old girl with no family.” he said. “It was one of the most painful things I’ve ever seen in captivity.”

“You sleep every night with the fear that they will rape you,” he said. “There is something about being a woman in captivity.”

Another moment she shared captured her strong personality. Emily said Hamas repeatedly referred to her as a “prisoner” and she refused to accept it. “I said, if you call me a prisoner, why don’t I eat three meals a day? Why can’t I talk to my mother? Why can’t I ever see the sun?” He told them clearly that if he was truly a prisoner, he deserved basic rights. However, the terrorists chased him away.

People walk towards Israeli military helicopters as three female hostages, Romi Gonen, Doron Steinbrecher and Emily Damari, held in Gaza since a deadly attack on October 7, 2023, return to Israel as part of a ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel across Israel’s Gaza border in southern Israel, January 19, 2025. (REUTERS/Amir Cohen)

Hamas guards routinely play Al Jazeera broadcasts using battery-powered televisions, Damari said. He was stunned by what he saw, especially the campus protests in America.

“I couldn’t believe I was watching the protests in the United States, especially at Columbia University,” he told Fox News Digital. “Students protesting and people demonstrating for something they know nothing about.”

As a gay woman who had to hide her identity to survive, she immediately noticed LGBTQ activists in the images. He said he confronted his kidnappers directly.

“I even told my captor that if the Queer for Palestine protesters entered Gaza, they would never get out,” the woman told Fox News Digital. “My terrorist captor just grinned and agreed.”

Extremists protested Israel at Columbia University in New York.

“I feel sorry for all these people for being so poorly informed and not taking the time to understand the truth,” he said.

Damari said he and the other hostages survived emotionally by clinging to any sign that the world was fighting for them. The weekly demonstrations in Israel were everything.

“We waited for Shabbat every week…it was one of the greatest lights for us,” he said. “We watched the protest and we knew they hadn’t forgotten us… they did everything they could to get us released.”

FORMER ISRAELI HOSTAGE Says HAMAS captives once worked ordinary jobs: “TEACHERS AND DOCTORS”

Hostage Emily Damari was released at Temple Emanu-El in New York on November 5. During his captivity, he did not know whether his mother, Mandy, and his brothers, Tom and Ben, had survived the Hamas attack.

With her mother Mandy and brothers Tom and Ben in New York, she described the pain of not knowing whether her family had survived the massacre in Kfar Aza. The terrorists had reached “very close to my mother’s house” and her brother’s house.

He begged God to give him a sign that his mother was alive. This only happened when the guards briefly turned on a small television. “The first thing we saw was someone showing my poster in the Knesset… and I said, ‘Oh my God, that’s my mother. My mother is alive.'”

But he still didn’t know about his brother. He learned the truth only after returning to Israel. “They took me to the IDF and said, your whole family is fine… my brother is fine,” he said through tears. “That was the moment when I finally let myself breathe.”

Freedom brought its own weight. His closest friends from Kfar Aza, Gali and Ziv Berman, remained in Gaza until the final hostage agreement brokered by the Trump administration. Emily said their release on October 13 was the moment she truly felt free.

“Seeing the sunsets bothered me. I wasn’t enjoying anything… while they were still there.”

“I feel great now,” he said. “This was the true happiness I was looking for.”

When asked what would happen next, he did not hesitate to say it.

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD FOX NEWS APPLICATION

Hamas hostage posters of Gali and Ziv Berman, close friends of Emily Damari, who were released from captivity last month. “Seeing the sunset bothered me. I didn’t enjoy anything… while they were still there,” Damari said. he said. (Hostages and Missing Families Forum)

“I think there’s a reason why God chose me to go through this terrible experience… I have the opportunity to speak to the world and share my story,” he said, sharing that he has begun writing a book. “Everyone should know what we went through.”

He concluded his speech with a call not to forget the four hostages currently held in Gaza, one of whom is reportedly expected to be extradited later today. “Everyone should have a dignified burial,” he said.