Soon after her release from more than 470 days of captivity in Gaza, Emily Damari entered Sheba Medical Centre, near Tel Aviv, wrapped in a large Israeli flag and smiling, video footage showed.

In a photograph released by the Israeli military, the 28-year-old flashed a kind of V-sign with a bandaged left hand — a “rock on” hand gesture made up of her index and little fingers because she lost the others to a gunshot wound in the Hamas-led attack on Israel.

And on Monday morning, Damari posted on Instagram thanking God, her family and friends, and saying, “I have returned to life” and was“the happiest person in the world”.

Damari was freed on Sunday along with Romi Gonen, 24, and Doron Steinbrecher, 31, all of them kidnapped during the Hamas-led assault on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which an estimated 1,200 people were killed.

Video released by the Israeli military showed the three hostages being reunited with their families in emotional scenes, and Israeli news anchors openly expressed their relief as the first images emerged from Gaza and they were seen entering a Red Cross vehicle unaided.

But while the early scenes captured on video and in photographs were ones of elation, much is unknown about the women’s conditions.

The Israeli health ministry and Sheba Medical Centre, where the three women are staying in a closed wing with family, have provided little information about the conditions of the women, saying in statements that their primary commitment was to safeguard the privacy of the returnees while they receive medical and psychological care.

In brief statements on Sunday night, two doctors at Sheba hospital suggested that the women were not in immediate need of emergency treatment.

“I’m happy to report that they are in stable condition,” said Prof. Itai Pessach, adding, “That allows us, and them, to focus on what is the most important thing for now — reuniting with their families.”

Sheba Medical Center has been the first stop for dozens of captives who were seized in the October assault and later freed, including many of those released in an exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners in November 2023, as well as the four hostages rescued in an audacious and deadly Israeli military raid in June 2024.

Professor Pessach, who has led the Sheba medical team for returning hostages, cautioned in an interview in June that first impressions can be deceptive.

New York Times News Service