British hostage Emily Damari slams Pulitzer Prize for Palestinian writer branded the 'modern-day equivalent of a Holocaust denier'
Freed British hostage Emily Damari has slammed the Pulitzer Prizes board for giving an award to a Palestinian who is 'the modern-day equivalent of a Holocaust denier'.
Emily, 28, said the committee had 'failed' on 'a question of humanity' after it gave out the esteemed honour to 32-year-old Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha.
Toha has repeatedly called for Israeli captives not to be referred to as 'hostages', labelled them as 'killers' and denied accounts that they were tortured.
On Ms Damari specifically, he posted on January 24 - just five days after she was freed after 15 months in hell - to Facebook: 'How on earth is this girl called a hostage?'
He shared footage showing she was in the IDF, and wrote: 'So this girl is called a "hostage"?
'This soldier who was close to the border with a city that she and her country have been occupying is called a "hostage"?'
Defiant Emily Damari waves her wounded hand as she went into surgery to treat injuries inflicted by Hamas
Ms Damari was cowering in a bomb shelter with her best friend Gali Berman, 27, at home in Kfar Aza when Hamas stormed the kibbutz and slaughtered her neighbours.
The terrorists killed Ms Damari's dog, shot her in the hand and leg and dragged them both into Gaza along with Ziv, Gali's twin brother.
A Palestinian doctor calling himself 'Dr Hamas' then carelessly stitched the nerves in Ms Damari's hand together leaving her in endless pain for more than 15 months in captivity.
While Emily served as a police border guard, she was targeted and kidnapped as a civilian. Her distraught family had to conceal this fact over fears of what might happen if Hamas found out.
But after being freed on January 19, Toha chose to twist that narrative to suggest that Emily somehow was not a hostage.
Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha has repeatedly called for Israeli captives not to be referred to as 'hostages'
He posted similar comments about Agam Berger, a 20-year-old who was carrying out compulsory national service as an unarmed border observer when terrorists shot dead her friends and kidnapped her into Gaza in her pyjamas.
And Toha questioned Israeli forensics - the details of which were shared with international partners - that showed nine-month old baby Kfir Bibas and his brother Ariel, four, were strangled to death by Hamas.
Now the writer has been handed a Pulitzer Prize for Commentary for his portrayal of the Gaza War in The New Yorker.
Ms Damari, whose best friends Gali and Ziv remain in captivity, hit out at the decision in an open letter to the board published on social media this morning.
She wrote: 'I was at home in my small studio apartment in Kibbutz Kfar Aza when Hamas terrorists burst in, shot me and dragged me across the border into Gaza.
'I was one of 251 men, women, children and elderly people kidnapped that day from their beds, their homes and a music festival.
'For almost 500 days I lived in terror. I was starved abused, and treated like I was less than human. I watched friends suffer. I watched hope dim.
'And even now, after returning home, I carry that darkness with me - because my best friends, Gali and Ziv Berman, are still being held in the Hamas terror tunnels.
'So imagine my shock and pain when I saw that you awarded a Pulitzer Prize to Mosab Abu Toha. This is a man who, in January, questioned the very fact of my captivity.
Ms Damari with Romi Gonen, who was kidnapped during the Nova music festival in Israel on October 7, 2023
'He posted about me on Facebook and asked, "How on earth is this girl called a hostage?" He has denied the murder of the Bibas family. He has questioned whether Agam Berger was truly a hostage.
'These are not word games - they are outright denials of documented atrocities.
'You claim to honor journalism that upholds truth, democracy, and human dignity. And yet you have chosen to elevate a voice that denies truth, erases victims and desecrates the memory of the murdered.
'Do you not see what this means? Mosab Abu Toha is not a courageous writer. He is the modern-day equivalent of a Holocaust denier. And by honoring him, you have joined him in the shadows of denial.
'This is not a question of politics. This is a question of humanity. And today, you have failed it.'
Haunting footage from October 7, 2023 showed Hamas kidnapping Shiri Bibas, 32, as she clutched her young boys Ariel and Kfir.
Hamas put out a sickening video weeks later where they told Shiri's husband, Yarden, 34, that his wife and children had been killed.
It was hoped this was a sadistic trick, but in February this year Hamas confirmed their deaths and sent Israel back three coffins. Unbelievably, Israeli forensics then showed the body in Shiri's coffin was not hers.
The terrorists finally returned her remains the following day and tests showed the babies had been throttled to death with Israel sharing these findings for international verification.
However, when the BBC covered the story, Toha condemned them. He wrote: 'Shame on BBC, propaganda machine.
'If you haven't seen any evidence, why did you publish this? Well, that's what you are, filthy people.'
In another post Toha dismissed torture allegations, writing: 'When the Israeli hostages were released, did you see any torture signs? Even the soldiers among them?'
This despite footage of male prisoners being released horrifying the world. Eli Sharabi, 53, freed after 471 days, told the UN he was beaten, starved and kept in chains that tore his skin. 'I weighed 44 kilos,' he said. 'Half my body weight.'
Others have reported being held in chains, being beaten, fed donkey food and sexually violated.
The Pulitzer board said Toha was honoured for essays that 'combine deep reporting with the intimacy of memoir to convey the Palestinian experience'.
A spokesman for the board said: 'The Pulitzer Board is committed to recognising excellence in reporting, literature, history and culture, and the selection process for each award is based on a review of the submitted works.'
The Mail has asked them to respond to Ms Damari's post.
