Emily Hand, the 8-year-old daughter of Irish-Israeli citizen Thomas Hand, may still be alive, Irish national news service RTÉ News reported on Sunday.
Thomas Hand rose to international prominence when, several days after the Hamas massacres on October 7, he told CNN that he was relieved to hear the news that his daughter had been killed, because the alternative, that his daughter was a Hamas hostage, would be far worse.
“They just said, ‘We found Emily, she’s dead,’ and I went, ‘Yes,'” Hand told CNN. “I went ‘Yes,’ and smiled because that is the best news of the possibilities that I knew."
In a heart-wrenching interview on @CNNsitRoom, CNN reporter Clarissa Ward speaks with @WolfBlitzer about a grieving father who finally received confirmation of his daughter's tragic death during the Hamas attack. Watch: pic.twitter.com/F9Yh3lW5KI
— CNN (@CNN) October 12, 2023
There was a mistake, however, as RTÉ stated that the Hand family had told them that the IDF believes there is a "high possibility" that Emily is being held hostage by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Hand had previously expressed his initial fears that his daughter was held captive in the terrorist-controlled Palestinian enclave saying, “She was either dead or in Gaza, and if you know anything about what they do to people in Gaza, that is worse than death – that is worse than death.”
Emily had been staying with a friend in Kibbutz Be’eri, one of the southern Israeli communities hit hardest by Hamas’s terrorist infiltration on October 7.
At Be’eri, over 120 people were murdered by Hamas. Many others were kidnapped.
According to the RTÉ report, the Irish Embassy has officially confirmed that they currently believe the 8-year-old child had been abducted, rather than murdered.
DNA evidence suggests Emily not among the dead at Be’eri
An embassy official said the revelation was based on DNA tests which indicated that Emily was not among those whose remains were found at Kibbutz Be'eri, which has led Israeli police to believe she could still be alive and held hostage in Gaza.
The Jerusalem Post and OneFamily are working together to help support the victims of the Hamas massacre and the soldiers of Israel who have been drafted to ensure that it never happens again.