Amid the bombs, the pagers, the missile attacks and the relentless war in Gaza one thing hasn’t changed: there are five British or British-linked hostages who have been held for more than a year and no one knows when they will come home.
We wear our yellow ribbons, we scream, “bring them home” and occasionally our politicians remember to call for the unconditional release of the hostages. But the hostage families want them to do more; to remind fellow Brits that these people are one of their own.
Emily Damari’s mother Mandy is from Kent and Emily is a UK citizen. The 28-year-old was kidnapped in her pyjamas from her home on Kibbutz Kfar Aza where she was raised. She’s a music lover who is a fan of Ed Sheeran and Robbie Williams. She loves to drink a pint while watching her favourite team Tottenham Hotspur, go shopping at Primark.
Her true love was her dog Ch’ucha, a cockapoo who was shot in her arms. She’s an optimist; released hostages told Mandy that, incredibly, Emily would lead a song of Boker Shel Kef – meaning ‘it’s a great morning’ – to try and boost everyone’s mood.
For a year Mandy has been torn between publicising her daughter’s British nationality or keeping quiet – although much work has been going on behind the scenes. It’s a dreadful quandary for a mother to be in; could it make Emily more likely to be saved or killed? But the murder of six hostages last month showed that it didn’t matter if you were a high-profile hostage or a low profile one. Time is running out for all of them.
Mandy spoke to the British public for the first time on Sunday at a rally in Hyde Park but first she spoke to the JC. ‘It is time for the British government to do more for their hostages,’ said Mandy. ‘Emily is a young British woman but no one mentions the fact that there is a British hostage trapped in Gaza by Hamas for a year.
‘Every day is hell, not knowing what torture Emily is going through. I know from people who have come back that the hostages are being starved, sexually abused and tortured. Why isn’t our government doing more to say how wrong this is? Why aren’t they doing everything they can to obtain Emily’s release?
‘It is the responsibility of the British government to protect its citizens.’
Mandy is one of several members of hostage families who met with the Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Foreign Secretary David Lammy ahead of the anniversary of the October 7 attacks.
Avinatan Or, 31, is another hostage with a British mother.
His brother Moshe was among the delegation which went to Downing Street to appeal for help in making a hostage deal happen. Avinatan’s girlfriend Noa Agarmani was one of the few hostages who have been rescued by the IDF but she was separated from him as they were taken into Gaza.
‘When she was rescued, she came to us to hear news and we hoped to hear news from her and we were both disappointed,’ says Moshe. ‘We haven’t heard anything about Avinatan other than a photograph showing he had been kidnapped. But I can’t stop believing – hoping – that he is alive.
‘I am here to remind the British government that there are people with many ties to Britain who are being held hostage,’ he adds. ‘And also, to remind them the hostage issue is a humanitarian issue. This about good people against terrorists; everyone who considers himself part of a free country, a democracy, needs to help us fight for these things.’
Sharone Lifshitz, a UK-Israeli citizen, whose parents were both taken hostage from their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz and whose veteran journalist and peace activist father Oded is still in Gaza, says it feels like time is running out. ‘We fear for their lives, we know they don’t have much time. We fear for what happens when Hamas doesn’t think the hostage are their ‘diamonds’ but have become a liability. We are asking the government to do the right thing and start putting pressure on all parties to both secure their well-being and bring them home.’
While Brighton resident Adam Ma’ayan, whose cousin Tsachi was taken hostage after he saw his 18-year-old daughter being murdered, says: ‘There are more things the government could be doing but isn’t doing.’
For Stephen Brisley, whose British sister and nieces were murdered on October 7 on Kibbutz Beeri, and whose brother-in-law Eli is still hostage, attention moving onto Lebanon and Iran makes things even more worrying.
‘We know how Hamas likes to psychologically torture all of us – who knows what attention-grabbing thing they will do?’ he says. ‘Our fear is that things are going to continue to escalate and they may start to execute the hostages as a way of retaliating for what is going on in Lebanon and Iran. That is why our government needs to make it clear how important the hostages are to them and that they need to be unconditionally released.’
