Hundreds of fans gathered outside the Tottenham Hotspur soccer team’s home stadium on Sunday to welcome released hostage and lifelong fan Emily Damari as she arrived to attend a game.
“I am very happy to be here,” Damari said in her first public appearance in the UK since her release on January 19.
“Thank you to everyone for praying for me, and shouting my name without knowing me, I don’t really have the words to say how thankful I am for that,” she told the crowd. “All of you are amazing. I hope Spurs are going to win today!”
Although the teamâs fans did not know Damari before she was taken hostage on October 7, 2023, she became a symbol to them amid efforts to get her released.
“I want to give a special thanks to all the Jews in the Diaspora, but especially to the UK Jewish community, who came out to support my mother and my family, campaigning tirelessly to help secure my release,” she said. “May the other 59 hostages be home soon.”
Damari specifically mentioned brothers Gali and Ziv Berman as “very, very, very close friends of mine, and I hope they bring them home today.”
She then released a cluster of 59 balloons, each of which was carrying an image of a hostage still held in the Gaza Strip.
As she did, campaigners chanted, “She’s one of our own, she’s one of our own, Emily Damari is finally home.”
“It is quite surreal seeing this person that you know from a sticker in real life,” Tracy Levi, 53, a mother of five, told the Daily Mail.
“I can’t even begin to imagine what she went through, and the strength of resilience she has shown should be a lesson to everybody,” she said. “We haven’t forgotten about any of the hostages, and we will keep fighting until they are all home.”
Inside the stadium, Damari was greeted by a number of former and current top Spurs and England players.
Tottenham played against Crystal Palace, but lost 0-2.
According to the Daily Mail, ever since the start of the current soccer season, dozens of fans had gathered outside the stadium before every game to demand Emily’s release.
The welcoming ceremony was organized by the Stop the Hate activism group.
Founder Itai Galmudy told the Daily Mail the event was “to say welcome back to Emily.”
“For too long we have been waiting, dreaming that she would be released. We campaigned for her here in the rain, sun, in the good times, the bad times,” he said. “And to have her coming to the Spurs stadium today is the crescendo of this entire campaign.”
The Israeli Embassy tweeted photos of Damari’s visit to the stadium on its official X account.
On Friday, she was invited to the home of Israel’s Ambassador to the UK Tzipi Hotovely.
Damari was taken hostage from her home in Kibbutz Kfar Aza during Hamasâs October 7, 2023, attack on Israel that started the Gaza war. Another 250 people were also abducted during the attack as over 5,000 terrorists invaded southern Israel, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians.
Damari lost two fingers when she was shot by Hamas during her abduction.