The mother of the last remaining British hostage in Gaza has said she wants “solutions, not sympathy” as she appealed to the government to help keep her daughter alive.
Mandy Damari gave her first news conference on a visit to London, where she met with senior politicians, pleading for help to bring her daughter and the other 100 remaining hostages home.
Emily Damari, a British Israeli, was kidnapped on 7 October last year and has been a hostage for 426 days. At this time of year, the 28-year-old would normally visit London with her mother to see the festive lights going up.
Mandy Damari described being in the capital as a “painful reminder” of what she has lost, but she hoped that next Christmas they could return to London together. Since her daughter’s ordeal began, the 63-year-old has spent her time in Israel campaigning for a ceasefire deal that secures the hostages’ release and brings an end to the war and “everyone’s suffering”.
“But this week I came to Britain with a different message,” she said.
“And my message is this: A hostage deal may be weeks, months or even further away. Meanwhile, their condition deteriorates every single hour. Much more needs to be done, and much more can be done, to keep Emily and the other hostages alive while they remain in captivity.”
Damari painted a picture of the stark reality facing the hostages, saying they were all at risk of suffering the “most painful and tragic deaths imaginable in the tunnels”.
”Many already have, and words alone will not save those who still remain,” she said.
It is understood that Hamas has “consistently” blocked the hostages from accessing the humanitarian aid coming into Gaza and Damari stressed that some of that aid “must finally reach my daughter and the other hostages”.
“The hostages are fighting tooth and nail to stay alive, they cannot survive a second winter with only our thoughts and prayers,” she added.
Damari has spent the last few days meeting politicians from across the political spectrum on her trip to the UK, and gave special thanks to the Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage, who told her he would talk to the US president-elect, Donald Trump, about Emily and the other hostages.
However, there was no such praise for the UK government, with Damari expressing disappointment over the actions of the foreign secretary, David Lammy, who she said did not acknowledge her daughter’s individual case in a recent statement published by his office on the need for Israel to allow more aid into Gaza for the winter.
She told the media that she addressed about 100 Labour MPs, including Lammy, at the annual Labour Friends of Israel event on Monday, during which she “specifically and repeatedly asked for action on the hostage aid situation”.
“I appreciate the foreign secretary’s warmth in our personal meetings, but as I have said, I came for solutions, not sympathy. I hope that he is willing to adopt the cause of working to keep Emily alive while we wait for her eventual release,” she added.
Damari grew up in Beckenham, south-east London, and travelled to Israel in her 20s where she raised her family on the Kfar Aza kibbutz. Emily was taken from the same kibbutz last year when she was allegedly shot in the hand, blindfolded and bundled into the back of her own car, before being driven to Gaza.
Although Damari has not had any official confirmation of her daughter being alive for eight months, she believes “she is still with us today”.
“Her situation is dire, and she desperately needs to be released along with every other remaining hostage,” she said. “From what we do know, the hostages have been hidden down in Hamas’s terror tunnel in the network and are being held in shocking conditions without any shred of compassion or mercy.
“Any number of causes could kill Emily – disease, starvation, dehydration, torture, execution or even friendly fire … as I have said before, every day is a new death sentence for her in Gaza,” she added.