8-year-old girl thought dead after Hamas attacks now believed to be held hostage in Gaza

THE 8 year-old Irish-Israeli who was feared dead in the October 7 Hamas attacks, is now believed to be alive and being held hostage in Gaza, reports have claimed.

Emily Hand, who had been at a sleepover at a friend’s house in Kibbutz Be’eri at the time of the attack, was feared dead. Now, reports from the Israeli authorities have claimed the 8-year-old is being held hostage in Gaza.

In an interview with Channel 12, Emily’s older sister, Natalie Hand, said: "We were told that she had been murdered. We were in mourning. Then on October 31, they told us that it was highly likely that she had been abducted."

Emily is the daughter of Dublin native, Thomas Hand, who moved to Israel over 30 years ago. In an interview with CNN on October 12, he had said her death was “a blessing”.

“They just said, ‘We found Emily, she’s dead,’ and I went, ‘Yes’ and smiled, because that was the best news of the possibilities that I knew,” Thomas recounted tearfully. “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… so death was a blessing,” said Mr Hand.