For almost four months of her 471 days in captivity, Emily Damari was incarcerated in the Hamas terror tunnels under Gaza, where the stench of human waste permeated the fetid wet air and the floor crawled with cockroaches.
Throughout it all she was in constant, searing pain after gunmen shot off two of her fingers the day she was kidnapped on October 7, 2023, while the remains of another bullet was lodged in her right leg.
But there was something even worse than the hunger, the stench, the pain and the lice that infested their clothes and hair: the cages.
Describing for the first time the inhumane practice in which they were treated like animals, Emily says: 'Sometimes there would be up to six of us at a time, squeezed in a tiny cage just two metres by two metres.'
The 29-year-old was finally freed alongside 32 fellow hostages in a ceasefire deal in January and propelled to international fame after an image of her posing defiantly with her wounded hand went viral – a symbol of freedom and courage.
