A schoolgirl who was abducted by Hamas said she had to use a secret code to communicate with her father while she was held hostage.
Emily Hand was taken hostage by Hamas during a sleepover at her friend's house as part of the October 7 attacks in Israel.
She told her father Thomas that a Hamas fighter had told her to be quiet "or I’ll kill you with this knife."
He said that the family are still recovering from the nine-year-old's horrific experience in captivity.
Thomas Hand recalled the ordeal of having his daughter adbucted
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Speaking to Israeli news organisation KAN News at the weekend, he said: "In my head, at the time when she was captive, I knew that the IDF had to do everything in its powers to destroy Hamas, primarily, and to do whatever that they could do to find and retrieve the hostages.
"Within that thought process, I realised that she could be bombed, could be shot by friendly fire, and that was a price that in my head, I could say: ‘OK.’ So long as we destroy Hamas, so long as the government and the military finish the job that they started out to do.
"If not, everyone who’s died, hostages, all the massacres, all the terrible things that happened, is pointless, pointless, a waste of time, effort and lives. We have to finish the job completely. I really don’t care what the world says, I really don’t care - doesn’t matter what I say, they’ll think whatever they want.
"But now, we have to finish it. They started it and we will finish it... She doesn't say much about what happened to her in Gaza. Just little bits every now and then. I guess that just shows how resilient kids are compared to adults. We're still suffering."
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A birthday party was held for Emily while she was taken hostage
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Emily spent 50 days in Hamas captivity where she was moved from house to house. She was eventually released on November 25 as part of an agreed hostage release.
Speaking to the Sun shortly after her release, she said: "She wasn’t physically injured at all. She wasn’t molested, she wasn’t hurt in any way. But just it was more on the mental side.
"She was a happy noisy kid, now she whispers.
"She’s been terrorised by terrorists in hell but as her dad it’s my job to make it better and I will. It’s going to be a long road but we’ll get there."
Balloons and banners for the ninth birthday of Irish-Israeli girl Emily Hand
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Over the weekend, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was not ready to accept a deal at any price to release hostages held by Hamas.
It comes amid rifts in his coalition over a US push to get more aid into Gaza.
In the devastating attack by Hamas gunmen in October, 1,200 people were killed, according to Israeli tallies, and some 240 dragged to Gaza as hostages.
In response, Israel launched a relentless campaign that has killed more than 27,000 people, according to Palestinian health authorities. The action has forced most of the 2.3million population to flee their homes.
