Father of Emily Hand, 9, Says She Can’t Stop Whispering or Crying: ‘She Didn’t Want Any Comfort’
“She went under the covers of the bed, the quilt, covered herself up and quietly cried.”
Thomas Hand felt relief when Kibbutz Be’eri leaders told him Hamas murdered his daughter Emily, 9, on October 7.
Thomas knew the hell Emily would go through if Hamas took her hostage.
Emily spent the night with her friend Hila Rotem-Shoshani.
A few weeks later, Thomas found out Hamas took Emily hostage, and she likely survived. None of the remains matched Emily, and no blood at the house.
Authorities also tracked Hila’s family’s cell phones.
Emily, Hila, and Raaya, Hila’s mother, survived, but Hamas took them hostage. Raaya treated both girls like her daughters and did as much as possible to look after them.
Hamas separated the girls from Raaya two days before they were released a few days ago.
Both girls came home. Hamas is still holding Raaya.
Thomas spoke to CNN, and I can see why he, as a father, felt that relief when the leaders first told him Emily had died. What he revealed since poor Emily has been home is tragic.
Emily is pale, glassy-eyed, and has lost weight. She also cannot stop whispering:
“The most shocking, disturbing part of meeting her was she was just whispering, you couldn’t hear her. I had to put my ear on her lips,” he said. “She’d been conditioned not to make any noise.”
A photograph of father and daughter released by the Israel Defense Forces shows a glimpse of the situation, Thomas said.
“You could just see glassy-eyed terror,” he said.
Emily thought Hamas took Thomas hostage. She also thinks the terrorist group held her for a year.
A YEAR. Thomas described that as a “punch in the guts.”
Emily said the hostages had food and water. The terrorists never hit them, but the kids could not make any noise. They allowed them to draw and play cards.
Unfortunately, Thomas had awful news for Emily:
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. “She looked after them like her own two kids.”
Emily lost her mother to cancer when she was just 2 years old. And Hand has had to tell her that her “second mom” was killed on October 7. Narkis Hand was Hand’s former wife, and mother to Emily’s two half-siblings.
“That was very hard. We told her and her little eyes glazed over and she took a sharp intake of breath,” he said.
It doesn’t get better at night:
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.
And she hasn’t shut down. “Last night she cried until her face was red and blotchy, she couldn’t stop. She didn’t want any comfort, I guess she’s forgotten how, to be comforted” Hand said. “She went under the covers of the bed, the quilt, covered herself up and quietly cried.”
She didn’t want to be touched so Hand just waited until she was ready. “She’s a very determined little girl, very strong, I knew that her spirit would get her through it.”
Thomas Hand speaks about the moment he was reunited with his daughter, Emily.
“It was only when she stepped back a little that I could see her face was chiseled like mine. Whereas before she left it was chubby.”pic.twitter.com/11i1Hk9yyd
— Aviva Klompas (@AvivaKlompas) November 28, 2023
Emily Hand isn’t doing well.
“Last night she cried until her face was red and blotchy, she couldn’t stop. She didn’t want any comfort, I guess she’s forgotten how to be comforted. She went under the covers of the bed, the quilt, covered herself up and quietly cried.”
“The most… https://t.co/d0mjP9HyBB
— Marina Medvin 🇺🇸 (@MarinaMedvin) November 28, 2023
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Comments
Unfortunately, these hostages will face years of fear, terror, and other psychological nightmares. This is especially true and horrific for children.
These Palestinian terrorists deserve whatever fate comes their way.
Regarding the terrorists on our own soil, these people should have any visa revoked, they should be immediately deported, and never allowed in civilized countries again.
The agitators in our universities and the illegals slipping over our borders need to be rooted out and deported.
For Americans who chant from the river to the sea should be expelled and shamed out of polite society.
Shamed? Perhaps beaten would be a good stood. I hate these “educated” morons who have no idea what they are actually championing, or worse–they do.
“These Palestinian terrorists deserve”
We cannot give any on of them enough punishment, I guess we will have to settle for quantity, as in eradicating those 75% of Gazans who support terrorism. Their children are the source of terrorists.
Any actual terrorists caught on our soil already do have their visas revoked and are deported. But mere agitators, once they’re here, can’t be punished because they’re protected by the first amendment. They can be denied visas if they apply from overseas, but once here they’re free to express whatever opinions they like.
I pray for this little angel.
May the God of Abraham grant her comfort and peace, especially through the love of her remaining family. May the God of Isaac bring justice – in this world, AND in the next – to those who perpetrated this horrific act and all of their supporters. And may the God of Jacob encourage the hearts of leadership in Israel to do what must be done to prevent this atrocity from happening again. Amen
https://www.danielgreenfield.org/2023/11/how-hamas-became-environmentalist-and.html
After 9/11, liberals and Democrats in a fit of schismogenesis countered Bush’s War on Terror with a war for terrorists. Islamists became an oppressed group and a vital part of the leftist coalition not in spite of their destructiveness, but because of it.
I honestly don’t know how Israel can have any security so long as Gaza and the West Bank are populated with Arabs – these Arabs, in particular. There’s a reason no other Arab nation will take ‘Palestinians’ in. Kuwait tried it 30+ years ago and it didn’t even last a year. Kuwait sent them all back, more than 100K.
When you’ve got adolescents carrying knives and AKs in the streets practicing how they’re going to stab and shoot the first Jews they can, there’s no ‘healing’ that divide. Those kids are feral. Gaza is a breeding colony for murderous psychopaths, nothing more. So long as it’s there, Israel will be in mortal danger.
There can only be a one state solution.
Israel gets everything from the River (Jordan) west to the Sea (Mediterranean) including the so-called Gaza strip. The
arab terroristsPalestinians get everything from the River (Jordan) to the East and to heck with whether Syria, Jordan, Lebanon want them. They get their arab brothers whether they want them or not. End of Problem. Easy PeezyIf only I could give you 100,000 votes!
Israel has always been too forgiving and it’s high time they understand that some groups of humans are simply born evil and resentful, knowing that they are among the least intelligent. They compensate themselves by being destructive and EVIL.
There will NEVER be humanity or dignity in these cast off
Jordanians who can’t even get along with any other Arabs.
Just like the black mamba, no redemption or meaningful
improvement will ever come about.
There will NEVER be decency in these cast off Jordanians and they can’t even get along with any other Arab group.
Just like the black mamba, no redemption is even possible.
Moderators, because I can’t take away the last sentence, please take it off my comment. I used the “Preview” but it was difficult to maneuver.
Why
Your right
Why do you call them “cast off Jordanians”? They were never Jordanian. For most of them, none of their ancestors ever lived in what is now Jordan. Most of their grandparents or great-grandparents immigrated from various countries, but there weren’t that many people in what’s now Jordan, so few of their grandparents came from there.
Someone needs to review the UN partition of 1948.
You mean the UN’s proposed partition plan of 1947? I think someone does indeed need to review it, since none of Jordan was included in it. What is now Jordan was not part of Palestine.
In any case, even if it had been, that would not make the “Palestinians” from there, since none of them did come from there.
Especially since they supported Saddam in the 1990 invasion. That was it for the Kuwaitis.
what a powerful example she is of the type of victims attacked/abducted/murdered on oct 7–the sheer barbarity of it all is simply unspeakable–for those who would carry-out such an attack and those who would support and abet such a thing death seems an inadequate punishment
hopefully she will recover fully and when she does also hope her future includes public service–she didn’t learn of hamas’ barbarity / hatred from the media or the faculty at some school / university–she was there
bless her and her family
Rule of thirds….. a third completely recover, a third wax and wan and a third never recover from such tragedy.
For those who ask how can humans beings do this, re-examine the premise of your question.
Part of the problem of Progressivism is the lack of understanding of human nature and denial of sin. When you basically deny human depravity, you can’t actually answer this sort of evil except with further evil (“but both sides…”).
Civilization is a very thin veneer , it is impossible to clean out human garbage without acquiring some of their stench.
And if no one is willing to get their hands dirty, the garbage takes over.
I read a book authored by a homicide investigator. He said when he heard the phrase “how can humans beings do this” he thought to himself “This is what humans do to each other”.
You read such things and the thoughts come, eradicate Hamas, eradicate all who support Hamas, glass Mecca and hunt down all who wstill bow to that hellish sewer.
This is not a reaction to the Palestinian Mandate. This is not a cry for liberty or freedom.
This is a deep corrupting perversion of faith that festers like a tumor on all of the Earth.
It must be removed. All of it.
So it’s turning to soap opera.
GFY.
Soap opera news is an entertainment choice. That’s why it works as clickbait.
You’re entertaining yourself with this girl’s misfortune.
Typically it’s a vice of women (accounting for the state of news coverage) but anybody can do it.
No. I forced my daughter to listen to Elizabeth Smart’s book this past summer.
She’s 11.
I hate removing the protective blanket of childhood ignorance- but I am purposefully raising her with the ability and training to end any predator while maintaining the civility required for a normal, happy, and safe life.
Lileks wrote, many years ago, that he had no qualms about his daughter starting dating when she reaches age 26.
Everyone is being very careful not to wonder what horrors this little girl must have suffered to return home in such shape. Luckily, her father is a strong man who will guide her along the way back. As for Hamas, as TargaGTS said above, they are feral savages, disgusting monsters.
The problem remains…
Decades ago, the world said “Never Again!”
Yet, here we are, the world, including the United States either supports or turns its back on the destruction and genocide of the Jewish population.
While we can’t fix the world, we can show our support of Jews. We can also work to eradicate the hatred here at home.
Deborah Cohen, the aunt of Eitan Yahalomi, 12, who is a dual French-Israeli citizen, told French TV outlet BFMTV on Tuesday (translated from French): “Eitan apparently saw horrors over there [in Gaza]. … Hamas forced Eitan to watch a horror film [of October 7], that no one could [bear to] watch … Every time that a child cried over there, they threatened [the child] with a gun to be quiet.” She added that child hostages had been beaten when they arrived in Gaza after being kidnapped by Hamas.
Oh, the brave martyrs of Islam who beat small children! May their 72 virgins perpetually menstruate.
I read an essay on Spiked stating that the feckless Irish PM had described Hand’s capture and abduction by Muslim supremacist/terrorist thugs as her having been “lost, and, now, found,” or, words to that effect.
These contemptible European dhimmis must invoke sanitized language to characterize Muslim barbarism and atrocities. They’re incapable of using plain language to describe evil acts carried out by Muslims.
He’s Indian, not really Irish
What makes someone Irish? Was Robert Briscoe Irish? If so, in what way was he more Irish than Leo Varadkar?
Whatever the PM’s ethnic background is, it bears mentioning that many Irish are — gallingly and contemptibly — some of the most gullible, enthusiastic and indefensibly gleeful supporters of Arab Muslim “Palestinian” supremacists/terrorists, and, are equally enthusiastic vilifiers of Israel. I think these idiots think it’s a way to stick it to the British, or, something.
No, I don’t think they think that at all. On the contrary, as two peoples that fought the British for independence you would think they would be pro-Israel. Unfortunately they’re not, and this is not just recent woke nonsense, it’s long-standing, and I can only attribute it to old-fashioned native antisemitism, part of Ireland’s Catholic legacy left over from before the Roman church renounced it.
For anyone wondering how early you should teach and train your kids on how to use a gun…
here’s your answer.
It appears to me Hamas and Muslims take hostages to destroy them physically and mentally. I am sadly sure reading their past history many will be beaten and tortured.
I would hope the Israeli army’s victories reduce the DC squad to crying and whispering rather than their usual bullschiff.