Freed British-Israeli hostage Emily Damari revealed in a phone call with Keir Starmer today that Hamas terrorists held her in a United Nations aid facility and denied her medical treatment.
Emily spent 15 nightmare months in Gaza after she was snatched from her home in southern Israel during Hamas’ incursion in the country on October 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 people.
Her release earlier this month came as part of a fragile ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel aimed at ending the war in Gaza.
In an emotional conversation with the PM this morning, the 28-year-old said she had been kept in facilities belonging to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency and was not given medical attention, despite having been shot in the hand and leg during the violent kidnapping and losing two fingers.
It was also revealed that all that was provided to the hostage over the course of her captivity to treat her wounds was an out-of-date iodine bottle.
Emily’s revelation about where she was held comes after Israel in October adopted a law banning operations by the UNRWA on Israeli land from January 30 after the country alleged that a number of the agency’s staff were involved in Hamas’ October 7 attack.
The U.N. has said nine UNRWA staff may have been involved and were fired.
Israel’s move was met with widespread condemnation from world leaders, however, as almost all of Gaza’s population are dependent on aid from the agency.
During today’s phone call with Starmer, Emily and her mother Mandy Damari also asked the PM to ‘put maximum pressure on Hamas and UNRWA to allow the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to finally have access to the 82 remaining hostages still being held in the territory’.
Also on the call, Starmer enquired about Emily’s condition, to which Mandy responded that her daughter ‘seems to be doing pretty well psychologically’, but noted that she had a ‘long road ahead of her considering the physical injuries she sustained’.
Mandy later shared an image of her daughter speaking to the PM on the phone on X and thanked him for his ‘support in getting Emily home’.
‘Hamas held Emily in @UNRWA facilities and denied her access to medical treatment after shooting her twice. Its a miracle that she survived, and we need to get aid to remaining hostages now’, she wrote.
Despite Israel’s ban coming into force yesterday, the UN Palestinian relief agency said its humanitarian work across the occupied territories and Gaza was still ongoing on Friday.
‘We continue to provide services,’ Juliette Touma, director of communications of UNRWA, told a press briefing in Geneva.
‘In Gaza, UNRWA continues to be the backbone of the international humanitarian response. We continue to have international personnel in Gaza, and we continue to bring in trucks of basic supplies.’
She said any disruptions to its work in Gaza would put a ceasefire deal that halted the war between Israel and Hamas at risk.
‘If UNRWA is not allowed to continue to bring and distribute supplies, then the fate of this very fragile ceasefire is going to be at risk and is going to be in jeopardy,’ she said.
Before the ceasefire deal, experts had warned of imminent famine in parts of northern Gaza.
Supplies have since risen and the World Food Programme said that more than 32,000 tonnes of food had entered Gaza since the Jan. 19 deal took effect.
At the same briefing, the World Health Organization’s Dr Rik Peeperkorn said about 12,000-14,000 patients were waiting to be evacuated from Gaza across the Rafah crossing.
Fifty are set to be moved on Saturday amid warnings that some children could die.
These would be the first medical evacuations via Rafah since it was shut in May last year, he added.
