A year has passed since that ”terrifying nightmare” of October 7th. Day in which, among the 215 hostages taken by Hamas in southern Israel, there was also Emily Hand, who was 8 years old at the time. ”Emily continues to recover, she’s definitely well,” Thomas Hand told Adnkronos a year later. ”Emily doesn’t talk much about her 50 days of captivity, I think she just wants to put all those memories behind her and move on with her life,” explains Hand.
”We have been and continue to be refugees in our country like thousands of others”, the man continues, adding that ”all our hopes are aimed at getting the remaining hostages out alive and well” still in the Gaza Strip . ”We hope to one day return home to our beloved Kibbutz Be’eri,” he adds. Emily, who turned 9 during her captivity, was on that kibbutz when she was kidnapped. And among the first stories he told his father after the liberation he said he thought he had spent ”a year” in Gaza.
The little girl, among the 13 Israeli hostages freed by Hamas in November on the second day of truce in the Gaza Strip, was at the center of a particular story. The first news after the massacre referred to his death and the news was greeted almost with relief by his father. “They told me ‘we found Emily, she’s dead’. And I said ‘Yes’ and I smiled, because it was the best news scenario. Either she was dead or she was in Gaza… What they do to people in Gaza it’s worse than death… Death is a blessing,” the father said.
At the beginning of November, new information: Emily is alive and is in the hands of Hamas. ”Surprised, shocked, not completely happy. I will only be happy when he can return to us, I hope soon,” Thomas Hand told Adnkronos on November 5th. “We all love you, we are all waiting for your safe release as soon as possible. Be strong,” the father’s words 20 days later.
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