“They just said ‘We found Emily, and she’s dead’,” an anguished Dad told reporters after the deadly Hamas attack in Israel. Thomas Hand said he was relieved by the knowledge that his daughter was at least not in Hamas’ hands.
“I knew the alternative for my daughter. I knew she’d either be found dead or kidnapped and taken to Gaza,” he said. “The thought of a little eight-year-old child in the hands of those animals… Can you imagine the sheer horror for an eight-year-old child?”
Now authorities believe the 8-year-old Irish-Israeli may be alive and held hostage by Hamas. An official said tests had shown her DNA was not found in the ruins of Kibbutz Be’eri.
We were in mourning,” Emily Hand’s sister reported. “On October 31, they told us that it was highly likely that she had been abducted.”
She had been sleeping over at a friend’s house on Kibbutz Be’eri, roughly three miles from the Gaza Strip, when the assaults began. More than 100 people on the kibbutz were killed, according to the BBC.
When asked by a news channel to speak directly to Emily, her sister said:
“I want to tell you that we are doing everything to get you home. We know you are being held hostage. We love you so much and miss you.”