Emily Damari Hid Her Border Police Career for All 471 Days

Emily Damari, who was abducted from her home in Kibbutz Kfar Aza on 7 October 2023, concealed from her captors throughout the 471 days she was held that she was a career Border Police fighter. The Israeli authorities have now cleared that detail for publication.

Alongside Damari, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) permitted publication of the fact that two other former hostages, Bar Kuperstein and Rom Braslavski, were in regular military service when they were seized. Braslavski served in logistics for the army's Central Command and Kuperstein was a combat soldier in the Nahal infantry brigade. Both were on leave when they were taken captive.

Why this was held back

The point of the restriction was Damari's safety. She had spoken about her Border Police service in public before the war (at a conference in 2023), but the detail carried a publication restriction that was lifted only long after her release, and she kept it from her captors for the whole of her captivity, Ynet reported when it was cleared. The army held back the service records of Kuperstein and Braslavski in the same way, and released them only once the two men were out.

What the Border Police is, and is not

The Border Police, known in Hebrew as Magav, is not part of the army. It is the gendarmerie and border-security arm of the Israel Police, staffed through the national conscription system but under police command, with roughly 8,000 officers. Its work runs from securing frontiers to counter-terrorism and law enforcement in Jerusalem, where about a fifth of its personnel are stationed, and in the West Bank, according to a reference account of the force. That structure is why Damari's status needed a separate disclosure from the army's announcements about the two soldiers.

The releases these three came home in

Damari was freed in January 2025, 471 days after she was taken, under an earlier ceasefire. Kuperstein and Braslavski were among the 20 living hostages released on 13 October 2025 under the agreement brokered by the United States, which also required the return of 28 deceased hostages and saw Israel free 250 Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences along with about 1,700 others detained after 7 October 2023, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. Both men had been working security at the Nova music festival when they were taken; the Times of Israel reported that Kuperstein stayed at the site to give first aid to the wounded, and that Braslavski was helping festival-goers get away when he was wounded in both hands and seized.

What is still unclear

The announcement did not say who imposed the original restriction or when it was lifted, and it gave no rank for any of the three. It did not say whether any of them had been questioned by their captors about military service, or what other details about the hostages remain under restriction. The original release spells the third name both as Ram and as Rom Braslavski.