And the separation of Hila from her mother two nights before the girls were freed – in contravention of agreements made between Hamas and Israel – was “another step of cruelty,” he said. Raaya looked after Hila and Emily like they were both her daughters, Hand said. “I want to know so much information … but you have to let them, when they are ready, come out with it.”Įmily, who turned 9 in captivity, was held with her friend Hila Rotem-Shoshani and Hila’s mother Raaya before the children were released last Saturday. “We’ll only know what she really went through as she opens up,” he told CNN. “She’s coming out slowly, little by little,” Hand said. It’s one of the details that his daughter is slowly sharing of what happened after she was kidnapped on October 7 and taken to Gaza, a place she now calls “the box.” Being pulled, dragged, pushed … under gunfire probably,” he said on Tuesday.
Emily Hand had to run from house to house, forced to move by Hamas as Israeli forces attacked Gaza, her father Thomas Hand told CNN.
