Father Describes 9-Year-Old Daughter’s Trauma After Release From Hamas: ‘She’s Forgotten How To Be Comforted’

Thomas Hand’s nine-year-old daughter Emily was among the hostages released by Hamas terrorists over the last several days — but he has said in subsequent interviews that the trauma she endured in captivity was far from over.

Hand spoke with CNN about Emily’s return, saying that what was most jarring to him was the fact that she would not speak above a whisper. He later explained that she told him her captors had allowed her and the other children to play cards together, but they had been ordered to stay quiet and were beaten if they did not comply.

“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. She’d been conditioned not to make any noise … You could just see glassy-eyed terror,” he said, adding that a second revelation hit him like a “punch in the guts”: when he asked how long she believed she’d been held captive, Emily said, “a year.”

“All of a sudden the door opened up and she just ran. It was beautiful, just like I had imagined it, running together. I probably squeezed her too hard,” he said of their first meeting following her release. “It 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.”

After returning home, Emily faced the additional trauma of learning that her “second mom,” Narkis Hand, had been killed by the terrorists on October 7th in Kibbutz Be’eri. “We told her and her little eyes glazed over and she took a sharp intake of breath,” Hand said.

“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,” he said. “We’ll only know what she really went through as she opens up. I want to know so much information … but you have to let them, when they are ready, come out with it.”