Freed hostage Emily Damari returns to site of her abduction from her Kfar Aza home

2 February 2025, 8:22 pm

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Freed hostage Emily Damari returned to her home in Kibbutz Kfar Aza earlier today for the first time since she was abducted by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023.

“Today, I returned to my home, my apartment, to the oxygen I had and which almost ran out,” Damari writes on Instagram. “I returned to the place where my nightmare began, 485 days ago, and found only partial closure, which I have been waiting so long for.”

Damari, who was released on the first day of the ceasefire-hostage release deal on January 19, calls for decision-makers to ensure that the agreement is carried out in full and that all the hostages are returned to Israel

“There are 79 hostages who, like me, need to find their own closure, and who are waiting to make whole what is missing,” she writes. “We must not stop here. We must bring everyone, absolutely everyone, home.”

“I will only feel true victory when they return,” she adds.

She attaches a photo of herself sitting on the couch in her partially destroyed home, where a large banner calling for her release from Hamas captivity is still displayed on the wall.