Emily Damari expressed relief over the reported death of Hazem Naim, one of her former captors, and hopes for the return of the remaining hostages.
Freed Gaza hostage Emily Damari reacted to news that one of her former terrorist captors had reportedly been killed in an IDF airstrike on Sunday.
Damari, in an Instagram story, noted that the terrorist, Hazem Naim, also held Romi Gonen and Naama Levy captive.
She thanked Israel’s security forces who “never rest for a moment on behalf of all of us,” and hoped that good news, including the announcement of the return of the remaining 48 hostages, would come “sooner than expected.”
Damari also named hostage twins Gali and Ziv Berman by name, hoping for their release from terror captivity. Gali was in Damari’s Kibbutz Kfar Aza home at the time of their kidnapping. Ziv was kidnapped separately. Both still remain in terror captivity in the Gaza Strip.
She also stated that she shares in the grief of bereaved families, noting that the Saturday death of Sergeant First Class (res.) Ariel Lubliner marked the 900th IDF soldier to have fallen since Hamas began their October 7 massacre.
Freed hostage Emily Damari reacts in an Instagram story to news that one of her terrorist captors was reportedly killed, August 31, 2025. (credit: SCREENSHOT/INSTAGRAM/@EMILYDAMARI)
Damari referred to Naim as the commander of the terrorists who guarded her, along with Gonen and Levy, during their terror captivity, telling N12 that he was “a very evil person.”
She also thanked Israel’s security services for working day and night “to bring justice to all those sons of Satan” who held them captive.
“People will not understand what this monster was for me and for Romi,” Damari noted, adding that she exclaimed “shouts of joy” when hearing of Naim’s death.
Naim’s death has not been officially confirmed by the IDF or Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), but there is a growing confidence within the security establishment that he was killed.
Previous killing of other Damari terror captor
Mohammed Nasser Ali Qanita, another Hamas terrorist who held Damari and the others captive, was confirmed killed by the IDF and Shin Bet in July, following a targeted attack in mid-June.
Qanita was a member of Hamas’s military intelligence’s al-Furqan Battalion. He infiltrated Israel on October 7 and then held Damari hostage in his home at the start of the war.