Emily Hand doing ‘incredibly well’, her father says

Emily Hand, the nine-year-old Irish-Israeli girl who spent 50 days in captivity as a hostage in Gaza, is “doing incredibly well”, her father has said.

In an interview on Monday, her father Thomas Hand said his young daughter was recovering well and was not experiencing “too many nightmares”.

The young girl was one of the more than 200 people kidnapped by Hamas militants during the October 7th attack in southern Israel.

In an interview on Piers Morgan Uncensored, Mr Hand, a native of Dublin, said Emily’s speech was “almost back at full volume” and she was “eating like a horse”.

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“She’s tougher than all of us, she really is tougher than all of us … She’s as tough as nails,” he said.

Emily was released from captivity in late November 2023 as part of a prisoner exchange between her captors and the Israeli government. She had been held in Gaza with friend Hila Rotem-Shoshani and Hila’s mother Raaya. The group had been staying at Hila’s house in Kibbutz Be’eri when they were taken prisoners by Hamas.

Mr Hand had initially been incorrectly informed his daughter had been killed during the Hamas attacks in which 1,200 people died, before later being told she was in fact believed to be alive and among the hostages.

He said when he got a call informing him his daughter was on the list of hostages to be released he wanted to scream with joy.

“She wasn’t beaten, tortured, they were all reasonably humane shall we say,” he said. However, he added hostages were only given “small rations of food”.

“I guess her two months felt like a year, she wasn’t enjoying it very much. The only activity they could do was play cards and do drawing, they had to be very quiet,” he said.

Mr Hand said on the day the group that included his daughter was supposed to be released the families faced an agonising wait. “We waited a long time and during that time, of course, I’m thinking something’s gone wrong,” he said. Mr Hand said he had not been able to allow himself to relax “until I saw the colour of her eyes”.

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