The father of a young girl who was kidnapped by Hamas gunmen, taken into Gaza and later released has revealed his daughter was threatened by the terrorists. Thomas Hand’s daughter Emily, who turned nine in captivity, was released by the terror group in a prisoner exchange on November 25....CONTINUE READING
This was several weeks after she was dragged into Gaza by Hamas during their deadly October 7 terror attack on southern Israel that left 1,200 dead.
Mr Hand, who at one point during the family’s unimaginable ordeal believed his daughter to be dead, suffered an agonising weeks-long wait for his daughter to come home after learning that she was in fact still alive inside Gaza.
Now, Mr Hand has recounted some of the details he learned from his daughter about her 50 days in captivity, telling Israel’s KAN News that one of the Hamas terrorists threatened to kill her with a knife, and that she now has ‘code words’.
Thomas Hand’s daughter Emily (pictured together on the day of her release), who turned nine in captivity, was released by the terror group in a prisoner exchange on November 25
Speaking to Israel’s KAN News along-side his daughter Emily (left), Thomas Hand said of her recovery process: said: ‘She’s pretty good. Very very good, making progress, recovering. But the rest of us are broke now.’
Speaking of Emily’s recovery process, Mr Hand said: ‘She’s pretty good. Very very good, making progress, recovering. But the rest of us are broke now.’
The youngster was taken by gunmen from Be’eri Kibbutz where she was staying at for a sleepover at her friend’s home.
In the aftermath the 62-year-old Irishman was initially told – incorrectly – that Emily’s body had been found.
In a heartbreaking comment at the time, he said he welcomed the news of her death because it was preferable to knowing she was suffering inside the Gaza Strip.
But miraculously, little Emily survived and was one of 13 Israelis and four Thai nationals who were released on November 25 – one of a number of prisoner exchange deals between Israel and Hamas during a temporary ceasefire last year.
During the pause in fighting, 105 hostages were released.
Asked whether he could have imagined sitting with his daughter and smiling after she was kidnapped, he said he couldn’t: ‘At some point, she was gone completely.
‘At that point there was no future with us.’
He described her coming home as ‘a miracle. An absolute miracle.
‘It did come with a lot of guilt, that the rest of them… it’s just something you have to get on with. You hope, you pray, that they’ll come out as well.’
Over the around 250 hostages who were kidnapped by Hamas on October 7, Israel says 132 remain unaccounted for. Of these, 25 are believed to be dead.
Asked what he had to say to the families of the hostages still in Gaza, Mr Hand said: ‘Stay strong. Stay positive. I know it’s very, very hard, but this is proof that it’s possible. It can come back. I’d given up all hope really, but it can happen.’
An emotional Mr Hand said recovering from last year’s ordeal remains ‘difficult’.
He explained that Emily ‘doesn’t say a lot’ about her captivity and has ‘code words’ for things to do with her kidnapping, such as ‘Gaza’ and ‘terrorist’.
Emily was sitting with her father during the interview with KAN News, playing with the family’s dogs. Turning to Emily, Mr Hand asked: ‘What’s Zeitim? [Hebrew for olives]?’ Emily promptly responded: ‘Terrorists.’
The camera then panned to show a list of code words written on a whiteboard.
‘Any food or item that she doesn’t like, she transfers that word into code,’ Mr Hand explained. Emily said: ‘Sometimes it is uncomfortable for me to say these words.’
The father described some of the conditions in which Emily was held hostage, saying that he had imagined she was held inside Gaza’s vast tunnel network that runs for hundreds of miles under the strip, which Hamas uses to move undetected.
But, he says, that was not the case.
The youngster (pictured) was taken by gunmen from Be’eri Kibbutz where she was staying at for a sleepover at her friend’s home, and was among those released in November when Israel and Hamas agreed a pause in fighting and an exchange of prisoners
‘I believed she was down in the tunnels because that’s the safest place, that’s where they would treasure their hostages, but no, from the time she was kidnapped, they ran from one house…next morning, they ran to another house… presumably taking one step ahead of the IDF,’ he said.
Emily has told her father that she was with three men for most of the time she was there, in the same pyjamas that she was kidnapped in.
He also said that she was threatened by one of the terrorists, who he says told then-eight-year-old Emily: ‘Uskut’ [Arabic for be quiet] or I’ll kill you with this knife.’
Mr Hand gravely admitted that during his daughter’s time in captivity, he knew that her death in an Israeli air strike was possible, as a price to ‘destroy Hamas.’
He said: ‘I knew that the IDF had to do everything in its powers to destroy Hamas, primarily, and to do whatever that they could do to find and retrieve the hostages.
‘Within that thought process, I realised that she could be bombed, could be shot by friendly fire, and that was a price that in my head, I could say: ‘OK.’
‘So long as we destroy Hamas, so long as the government and the military finish the job that they started out to do,’ he continued in the interview.
‘If not, everyone who’s died, hostages, all the massacres, all the terrible things that happened, is pointless, pointless, a waste of time, effort and lives.
‘We have to finish the job completely.’
He added that he does not care about public opinion abroad, that that the only thing that matters is to eliminate Hamas.
‘I really don’t care what the world says, I really don’t care – doesn’t matter what I say, they’ll think whatever they want.
‘But now, we have to finish it. They started it and we will finish it.’
Mr Hand also revealed that Emily had believed had had been among the people killed by Hamas, which he said was a relief, knowing she wasn’t waiting for him.
Mr Hand (pictured with his daughter) has recounted some of the details he learned from his daughter about her 50 days in captivity, telling Israel’s KAN News that one of the Hamas terrorists threatened to kill her with a knife, and that she now has ‘code words’
‘Thankfully, that question in my head – that doubt that guilt in my head was quashed within a second of meeting at her,’ he told the Israeli interviewer.
‘She kept looking at me, and I said “what’s the matter?” and she said “I thought you were dead. I thought you were kidnapped, one of the other.”
‘That’s what she saw on the way out of the kibbutz. She saw people that she knew killed on the ground, murdered, and she saw other members of the kibbutz being taken away. So obviously, that’s the conclusion that she came to.
‘I thought that she was down deep in the dark tunnels going where is my dad? But she presumed I was killed or captive, so that was a great relief,’ he added.
Hamas’s attack on Israel prompted the Jewish state to launch an air and ground assault on the coastal territory, which continues to this day.
Over the weekend, Israel pressed further south towards the overflowing border city, warning its ground forces could advance on Rafah as part of its campaign to eradicate Hamas.
On Monday morning, sources told AFP news agency they could hear artillery shelling in the areas of eastern Rafah and Khan Yunis, southern Gaza’s main city.
Dubbed a ‘pressure cooker of despair’ by the United Nations, Rafah now hosts more than half of Gaza’s population, displaced due to Israel’s assault.
The Hamas government media office said Israeli bombardments have continued across the centre and southern end of the coastal Strip, including near hospitals.
The Israeli army said troops continued to conduct ‘targeted raids’ in central and northern Gaza.
In Khan Yunis, forces killed ‘dozens of terrorists who ambushed the troops throughout the city’, it added.
A picture taken from Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip shows smoke rising over buildings in Khan Yunis following Israeli bombardment on February 5, 2024
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to arrive in Israel on Monday for another tour of the region, in a bid to secure a new truce between Israel and Hamas.
The diplomatic push has become more urgent with the surge in attacks across the region by Iran-backed groups in solidarity with Hamas, triggering counterattacks by the United States.
The proposed truce would pause fighting for an initial six weeks as Hamas frees hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, according to a Hamas source. Hamas has said no agreement has yet been reached, while some Israeli officials have expressed opposition to any perceived concessions.
Vowing to eliminate Hamas, Israel’s massive military offensive that has killed at least 27,365 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-ruled territory’s health ministry.
