Emily Hand, 9, was kidnapped by Hamas and in captivity for 50 days before her release in November, and her family say she is recovering ‘much faster’ than they first thought
A Hamas kidnapping victim is recovering “much faster” than her father thought she would, in a positive surprise for the nine-year-old.
Emily was held hostage for 50 days and was left too afraid to speak and physically weak after her ordeal. The Irish-Israeli youngster was abducted on October 7 and held for weeks by the Islamic terror group. She was kidnapped with her friend Hila Rotem, 13, and Hila’s mother, Raya, 54.
She was finally released from captivity on November 25 and was found severely malnourished and unwilling to speak because of what she had witnessed while in the hands of the Islamic terror group. Her father, Thomas Hand, says she is recovering well and improving every day.
He said: “She’s resilient. She’s a very powerful girl with a lot of inner strength. She was weak, she’d been starved, basically for 50 days. Her voice was less than a whisper. It was almost non-existent because Hamas had threatened her with a knife, all of them with a knife if they raised their voices above a whisper.
“So that I thought was going to be a very difficult thing to get over. But the recovery has been much, much faster than we could have dreamed of.” Thomas later revealed he had used horse riding among the therapies needed to gain Emily’s confidence back, the Irish Mirror reported.
Thomas now hopes other families can soon feel the joy he has felt having his beloved daughter back. He has insisted the remaining hostages must be released – having suffered more than 250 days in captivity. The dad added: “. I know what my family went through, so I cannot imagine doubling and trebling and quadrupling that timescale for the families, for the hostages themselves.
You take one person but they’ve got a mother and a father and brothers and sisters, and then immediate friends and relatives. We want peace. We all want peace. Let’s say there’s 120 remaining. Obviously they’re not all going to be alive. But give us all the bodies back. Give us every hostage back, living or dead. We can then have a ceasefire and try and get back to some kind of normality. We have no other choice. Give us back the hostages.”
Emily, nine, spent all her 50 days in captivity with Noa, 26, after they were seized separately by Hamas on October 7. After Noa was freed on Saturday, Emily’s dad, Dublin-born Tom, told the Mirror: “It’s amazing – Emily and I couldn’t stop crying all day long. Emily has already asked to meet Noa and give her a hug.” Noa and three others were freed in a raid on the Nuseirat refugee camp in Gaza, which the Hamas-run health ministry said killed 274 people, including children and civilians.
Emily’s recovery comes as Israel confirms its forces have entered central Rafah and expanded their offensive into southern Gaza. At least a dozen people were killed in two airstrikes Friday in central Gaza. Two children and four women were among the dead. Palestinians in the border city of Rafah have reported heavy fighting in recent days as Israel’s military widened its offensive in the south, seizing control of the entire length of Gaza’s border with Egypt.
Israel’s ground assault on the city began on May 6 and has operated primarily in eastern districts close to the border with Egypt. Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, condemned the recent airstrike, saying it was a “testament to how Rafah has turned into hell on earth”.
