HOSTAGES have endured horrific conditions at the hands of Hamas thugs during their 15-month nightmare.
The freed hostages have previously revealed that the harsh conditions they survived in Gaza included physical and emotional abuse, as well as humiliation, lice and hunger.
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And as the first three hostages – including British national Emily Damari – have been released, there is no doubt that they will need time to recover from the horrors they suffered during their 470 days in captivity.
Brave Emily was pictured smiling as she was released following her horrific ordeal before being reunited with her mum.
The Spurs fan showed her bullet-ravaged hand with two fingers missing after she was shot when she was kidnapped in the kibbutz village of Kfar Aza on October 7.
The intrepid Brit put on a brave face despite the miserable conditions she endured during her 15-month nightmare.
Emily was kidnapped in her own car and taken to Gaza. after terrorists shot dead his loved one dog Choocha in his arms .
They forced her to use a bucket as a toilet and starved her while the captives were given half a pita bread a day to eat.
Hamas hostages released in November 2023 revealed that the captives were not allowed to wash or change their clothes and many of them contracted lice.
They reported that the level of sanitation was atrocious and that large groups of hostages were forced to share a bathroom without water, causing the spread of disease.
One hostage said he was forced to eat wet toilet paper in a desperate bid to survive while held captive underground.
Another victim of Hamas revealed that she was sexually abused “under the threat of a gun” after being released in November.
The fearless 28-year-old posted that she is “the happiest person in the world” in her first Instagram post after being released.
But the father of another freed Hamas hostage fears Emily will be “mentally, physically and spiritually devastated” after 470 agonizing days in Hamas captivity.
brother tone64 years old, father of eight-year-old Emily, who was released after 50 days. in captivity said that Emily Damari will take years to recover after the horror she survived in Gaza.
He told The Solar: “My Emily was held for 50 days but she was never in a tunnel; he was on the surface all the time and was not with the ‘hard core’ of Hamas.
“But Emily Damari, I don’t know, she was probably in tunnels and probably had a much worse experience than my Emily had and for a much longer time. For ten…
Strange moment when Hamas gives Israeli hostages ‘gift bags’ with ‘certificates and photographs’ before being released
“She is also older, so her fear of being raped or tortured is much greater than Emily’s, so until she can talk and tell her experiences there will be no way of knowing what she went through.
“Emily, even at eight years old, understood exactly what had happened to her and then she knew what had happened to her and she got over it; It was the typical resistance of children.
“My little girl was lucky, she was able to recover, but some of the other children are not: they are introverted, they don’t want to be with their friends and they stay at home.
“I am 100 percent sure that it will take Emily Damari longer to begin the process of being able to talk about what happened to her.
“We don’t know what she has been through, but it has been a very long period and she will be devastated mentally, physically and spiritually.
“That amount of time will break your spirit, not knowing if you’re going to live that day, every day for 470 days. That has a very high cost.”
Speaking from his daughter’s own experience, Tom said the first challenge for the freed hostages will be controlling their hunger after months of going hungry.
She said little Emily needed to be monitored to prevent her from gorging and gradually reintroduced to the sun.
He added: “But the biggest sign that she was starting to recover was when she slowly stopped whispering.
“She still had the idea that if she spoke above a whisper, she would be stabbed.
Tom said Emily Damari, like her daughter, will need treatment from a variety of therapists and psychiatrists.
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Previous accounts from freed hostages have mentioned terrible living conditions and minimal food.
People reported being given no more than two dates a day for breakfast and half a pita for dinner.
Some said they had been forced to lick their plates from hunger.
Filipino hostage Jimmy Pacheco feared he would not survive as he was only given half a pita a day and salt water during his horrific six-and-a-half-week ordeal.
He said he had to consume wet toilet paper to stay alive while being held in a damp tunnel.
Jimmy told CBN Asia in November: “I told myself there was no way to survive because I have a history of kidney problems.
“It seemed like we were 40 meters underground and that’s why the walls were wet.
“I placed the paper I had saved on the walls until it got wet.
“Then I put it in my mouth and ate it, and so my stomach wasn’t empty.”
Amit Soussana40 years old, was taken hostage during the On October 7, she said she was guarded by two men and tied with an iron chain to the bars of a window for three weeks.
And another Israeli hostage kidnapped by Hamas on October 7 revealed that she was slapped, beaten and paraded around Gaza like a trophy.
Moran Yanai told The Solar that she was constantly yelled at during her time as a hostage and abused while her evil captors interrogated her daily.
Speaking to The Solar at the time, Aviva Klompas, who runs Boundless Israel said acts of physical abuse also extended to children.
She said: “There are children whose legs were burned so that they would be recognizable if they tried to run away.
“There are incidents of a young child being held in solitary confinement for 16 days, a young child. Can you imagine what that has done to his mental health? health?
“They also forced him, along with other children, to watch videos of the atrocities of the October 7 attacks, and when they cried they pointed guns at their heads and threatened them.”
Four more hostages will be returned on the seventh day and then each week for a four-week period.
Finally, in the sixth week, 14 hostages will be returned from a group of 33 made up of 12 women and children, 10 men over 50 years of age and 11 younger men.
Negotiations will resume to secure the release of 65 hostages still in Gaza on the 16th day of the ceasefire.
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What happened on October 7?
ON OCTOBER 7, 2023, Hamas launched a brutal surprise attack against Israel, marking one of the darkest days in the nation’s history.
The terrorists stormed across the border from Gaza, killing more than 1,200 people (most of them civilians) and kidnapping another 250, including women, children and the elderly.
In the coordinated assault, heavily armed fighters infiltrated Israeli cities, kibbutzim and military bases, unleashing indiscriminate violence.
Innocent families were massacred in their homes and graphic images of the atrocities spread on social media, leaving the world in shock.
And in addition to attacking people in their homes, they stormed the Nova peace music competition, killing at least 364 people there alone.
The massacre triggered a rapid and massive retaliatory response by Israel, leading to a full-scale war.
The attack not only reignited long-standing tensions in the region, but also left deep scars on both sides of the conflict, setting the stage for the 15 months of devastation that followed.
