\u201cThat\u2019s terrifying. Being pulled, dragged, pushed \u2026 under gunfire probably,\u201d he said\u00a0on Tuesday. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s 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 \u201cthe box.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s coming out slowly, little by little,\u201d Hand said. <\/p>\n
Emily, who turned\u00a09\u00a0in captivity,\u00a0was held with her friend Hila Rotem-Shoshani and Hila\u2019s mother Raaya before the children were released last Saturday. <\/p>\n
Raaya looked after Hila and Emily like they were both her daughters, Hand said. And the separation of Hila from her mother\u00a0two nights before the girls were freed \u2013 in contravention of agreements made between Hamas and Israel \u2013 was \u201canother step of cruelty,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Emily had been at a sleepover at Hila\u2019s house when Hamas terrorists stormed Kibbutz Be\u2019eri.\u00a0Hand\u00a0was trapped in his house for hours, unable to reach his daughter, as the community was ravaged \u2013 about 130 residents killed and others captured. <\/p>\n
But nearly a month later, the Israeli army told him it was \u201chighly probable\u201d Emily was alive and a hostage of Hamas.\u00a0Hand\u00a0said\u00a0the military had\u00a0been piecing together bits of information and intelligence. None of the remains at Kibbutz Be\u2019eri\u00a0were\u00a0identified as\u00a0those of Emily. There was no blood in the house where she slept. And cellphones belonging to Hila\u2019s family had been tracked to Gaza. <\/p>\n
Eight weeks after he had last seen his daughter,\u00a0Hand\u00a0was informed Emily was on the list of the second batch of hostages to be released under the temporary truce between Israel and Hamas. <\/p>\n
He tried to hold back his excitement as he reached the base where the freed hostages were being taken. There was a long delay and then word that she was with the Red Cross. <\/p>\n
\u201cAll of a sudden the door opened up and she just ran. It was beautiful, just like I had imagined it, running together,\u201d Thomas said. \u201cI probably squeezed her too hard,\u201d he added, giving his view of the now iconic video of the reunion where he greets his daughter with her nickname \u201cEmush.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was only when she stepped back that I could see her face was chiseled, like mine, whereas before it was chubby, girly, a young kid face.\u201d <\/p>\n
Like the other hostages, Emily has lost body weight and\u00a0Hand\u00a0said he had never seen her so pale. <\/p>\n
And he was jolted when she spoke to him. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe most shocking, disturbing part of meeting her was she was just whispering, you couldn\u2019t hear her. I had to put my ear on her lips,\u201d he said. \u201cShe\u2019d been conditioned not to make any noise.\u201d <\/p>\n
A photograph of father and daughter released by the Israel Defense Forces shows a glimpse of the situation, Thomas said. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou could just see glassy-eyed terror,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
But he also saw a sign of the child he knew when he offered her his phone in the van leaving the handover. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe first thing she did was get a Beyonc\u00e9 song on,\u201d he said, adding that she was also smiling and was starting to laugh again. <\/p>\n
He had taken the family dog Johnsie to the reunion to offer and receive unconditional love in case Emily was angry at him for not coming to rescue her \u2013 a fear he has held since he learned she was alive. <\/p>\n
But Emily told her father she thought he had been taken hostage too. <\/p>\n
And when he asked her how long she thought she was gone, she replied \u201ca year.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cApart from the whispering, that was a punch in the guts. A year.\u201d <\/p>\n
The hostages had enough food to survive and plenty of water to drink,\u00a0Hand\u00a0said. \u201cThey always had a breakfast, sometimes lunch, sometimes something in the evening.\u201d <\/p>\n
Emily was so hungry she learned to like eating plain bread with olive oil. <\/p>\n
She said \u201cnobody hit us\u201d and Hand imagines that just the strength of voices was enough to control her. The children could not make noise and were allowed to do little but draw and play with some cards. <\/p>\n
He is so grateful that Emily was held with Hila and Raaya for the most part, getting solace from knowing Emily had someone to care for her. \u201cShe looked after them like her own two kids.\u201d <\/p>\n
Emily lost her mother to cancer when she was just 2 years old. And Hand has had to tell her that her \u201csecond mom\u201d was killed on October 7. Narkis Hand was Hand\u2019s former wife, and mother to Emily\u2019s two half-siblings. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat was very hard. We told her and her little eyes glazed over and she took a sharp intake of breath,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Along with her sorrow, her pale skin and hollowed out face, Emily has returned with a head full of lice, Hand said. <\/p>\n
But she is slowly coming back. She tries to stretch out the days with her family but when she finally goes to bed she really sleeps. <\/p>\n
And she hasn\u2019t shut down. \u201cLast night she cried until her face was red and blotchy, she couldn\u2019t stop. She didn\u2019t want any comfort, I guess she\u2019s forgotten how, to be comforted\u201d Hand said.\u00a0 \u201cShe went under the covers of the bed, the quilt, covered herself up and quietly cried.\u201d <\/p>\n
She didn\u2019t want to be touched so Hand just waited until she was ready. \u201cShe\u2019s a very determined little girl, very strong, I knew that her spirit would get her through it.\u201d <\/p>\n
Emily and Hila now look out for each other, Hand said. They celebrated Hila\u2019s 13th\u00a0birthday with a cake in hospital on Monday and a cake was brought for Emily too, for the 9th\u00a0birthday she missed in Gaza. <\/p>\n
Thomas\u2019s focus is now split. He must get Emily well. And he will do all he can to get Raya back home and all the other hostages too. And he hopes the support he felt while Emily was missing will stay strong. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to get Raaya back for Hila, back for Emily, back for justice,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t go silent on us now,\u201d he implored the world. \u201cBring them home, bring them home.\u201d <\/p>\n\n
\u201cThat\u2019s terrifying. Being pulled, dragged, pushed \u2026 under gunfire probably,\u201d he said\u00a0on Tuesday. It\u2019s 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 \u201cthe box.\u201d \u201cShe\u2019s coming out slowly, little by little,\u201d Hand said. Emily, <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":12187,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12186","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}