The Times of Israel is liveblogging Saturday’s events as they unfold.
Death toll rises in Thai-Cambodian clashes despite ceasefire call
Thailand and Cambodia clash for a third day, as the death toll from their bloodiest fighting in years rises to 33 and Phnom Penh calls for an “immediate ceasefire.”
A long-running border dispute erupted into intense conflict involving jets, artillery, tanks and ground troops on Thursday, prompting the UN Security Council to hold an emergency meeting on the crisis Friday.
Cambodia’s defense ministry says 13 people are now confirmed killed in the fighting, including eight civilians and five soldiers, with 71 people wounded.
In Thailand, the army says five soldiers were killed on Friday, taking the toll there to 20 — 14 civilians and six military.
The death toll across the two countries is now higher than the 28 killed in the last major round of fighting between 2008 and 2011.
Both sides reported a clash around 5 a.m today (2200 Friday GMT), with Cambodia accusing Thai forces of firing “five hea.vy artillery shells” into locations in Pursat province, which borders Thailand’s Trat province.
Ex-hostage Emily Damari says remaining captives must be freed: ‘Come on already!’
Speaking to the Daily Mail about her time in captivity, British-Israeli Emily Damari says: “Come on already! What is taking so long?”
Appealing to the American and Israeli leaders, she says, “You saved my life, now you must do the same for the last 50 hostages. Only then can we start to heal.”
Damari recalls being held in a tiny cage in a Gaza tunnel in unbearable conditions with other hostages. She recalls hiding her sexual identity from her captors, as they spoke of killing their own family members if they were to find out they were gay.
She recounts, as she was being abducted on Oct 7, telling the terrorists “‘Shoot me!’ I didn’t want to be kidnapped, I would prefer to die. I took his gun, put it to my head and said: ‘Shoot me! Shoot me!’
“We just continued to survive,” she says. “We were totally surrounded by terrorists. Five girls. They have weapons. They are stronger than you. They can do whatever they like, whenever they like.”
At one point Damari said she tricked a guard into giving her his weapon “to play with.” When he walked away she told the other girls, “‘Maybe I should kill him?’ I started getting really excited about the idea.
“‘But then the girls said, ‘Yeah, but then what? Then we’re all going to die.'”
Damari speaks of the synchronicity and “twin-like” connection she developed with fellow hostage Romi Gonen. With Emily missing two fingers from the attack and Romi’s right arm not working where she herself had been shot, the two learned to work in tandem to eat, dress, and wash.