‘I just want to hug her’: Family of British-Israeli hostage on news she will be released

For Mrs Damari the last 15 months have been excruciating.

On Friday, she lit the Shabbat candles to mark the start of the Jewish sabbath.

Behind the candles a picture of her daughter with a British flag at the side of the picture.

Her prayers: that this would be the last Shabbat Emily would be held as a hostage.

Across the world, particularly in British homes, candles have been lit on a Friday night with pictures of Emily or other hostages alongside them with prayers for her release.

Speaking before the release, Emily Cohen, representing the Damari family, said it had been a “torturous 471 days but a particularly torturous 24 hours”.

“All Emily’s mum Mandy wants to do is hug Emily. But she won’t believe it until she sees it,” Ms Cohen said.

In an interview with BBC News last month, Mrs Damari explained how other hostages who were released in November 2023 had seen Emily.

“Some of them had met her in captivity. One family at the beginning and one family at the end. And she they told me that, basically, she was OK except for the gunshot wounds. She was still sane, and she was being Emily,” she said.

“She was really brave there, and she thought she was going to come home. She thought she was going to be released in that ceasefire, because the women were supposed to be released after that. And someone said, ‘Do you want me to take something for you?’ And she said ‘No, no, I’m going to come back tomorrow.’ And then she wasn’t.”

Her family was told in March 2024 she was still alive but received no information about her condition. Until Sunday, there had been nothing.