But there was also some hope.Ĭelebration with Beyoncé video and family dogĮight weeks after he had last seen his daughter, Hand was informed Emily was on the list of the second batch of hostages to be released under the temporary truce between Israel and Hamas. The waiting is awful,” he told CNN while she was a captive. And cellphones belonging to Hila’s family had been tracked to Gaza.įrom feeling that death would be a blessing, he now had all the fear of the conditions Emily was being held in. There was no blood in the house where she slept. None of the remains at Kibbutz Be’eri were identified as those of Emily. She’s dead.’ And I went, ‘Yes!’ I went, ‘Yes!’ and smiled because that is the best news of the possibilities that I knew … So death was a blessing, an absolute blessing.”īut nearly a month later, the Israeli army told him it was “highly probable” Emily was alive and a hostage of Hamas. Hand said the military had been piecing together bits of information and intelligence. He told CNN: “They just said, ‘We found Emily. Yael Shahrur Noah/APĮmily had been at a sleepover at Hila’s house when Hamas terrorists stormed Kibbutz Be’eri. Hand was trapped in his house for hours, unable to reach his daughter, as the community was ravaged – about 130 residents killed and others captured.Ībout two days later, he was told by kibbutz leaders Emily’s body had been seen. This September 2023 photo shows Emily Hand near Kibbutz Be'eri, Israel. And the separation of Hila from her mother two nights before the girls were freed – in contravention of agreements made between Hamas and Israel – was “another step of cruelty,” he said.

Raaya looked after Hila and Emily like they were both her daughters, Hand said.

“I want to know so much information … but you have to let them, when they are ready, come out with it.”Įmily, who turned 9 in captivity, was held with her friend Hila Rotem-Shoshani and Hila’s mother Raaya before the children were released last Saturday. “We’ll only know what she really went through as she opens up,” he told CNN. “She’s coming out slowly, little by little,” Hand said. It’s one of the details that his daughter is slowly sharing of what happened after she was kidnapped on October 7 and taken to Gaza, a place she now calls “the box.” Being pulled, dragged, pushed … under gunfire probably,” he said on Tuesday. Emily Hand had to run from house to house, forced to move by Hamas as Israeli forces attacked Gaza, her father Thomas Hand told CNN.

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