He was instructed his 9-year-old daughter was useless. Now she’s believed to be alive and a hostage in Gaza
NEW YORK (AP) — Emily Tony Korenberg Hand celebrated her eighth birthday final yr romping with family and friends among the many jugglers, acrobats and stilt walkers for her circus-themed social gathering at Kibbutz Be’eri, not removed from the Gaza Strip.
On Friday, when she turned 9, there was no social gathering. Emily is believed to be someplace in Gaza among the many hostages taken by Hamas militants who swarmed her kibbutz Oct. 7 throughout the incursion into Israel that left some 1,200 useless and 240 kidnapped.
“She won’t even know it’s her birthday. She won’t know what day it is,” her tearful father, Thomas Hand, 63, mentioned by way of Zoom. “Can you imagine the fear?”
Soon after the Hamas assaults, Hand had been instructed by leaders of Be’eri that Emily was among the many useless after she had spent the night time at a buddy’s home on the kibbutz. His shock and grief on the information was tinged with consolation.
“I was sort of relieved because I’d rather that than have her taken hostage,” he recalled pondering. “The way they told me was Emily has been found. She was found in the kibbutz, and she’d been found dead. I’ll never forget those three statements.”
Then, on Oct. 31, Hand’s world turned the other way up as soon as once more.
That’s when the Israeli navy knowledgeable him Emily‘s body had not been recovered, nor her DNA found among the blood and many dead at Be’eri. There was no blood within the bomb shelter she would have used or in the home the place she had gone for her sleepover.
“I had to shift my whole brain and digest this new information. And when they told me, I just went, ‘No, no, no no,’” he mentioned, his voice cracking.
Hand and his daughter, each twin Irish-Israel residents, weren’t strangers to heartbreak. When Emily was 2½, her mom, Liat Korenberg, died of breast most cancers. Korenberg and Hand had by no means married and have been residing aside, she in Haifa and he at Be’eri after he married one other girl.
Before Liat succumbed, she and Emily moved in with Hand at Be’eri so Emily‘s transition would be easier. Liat suffered for just over two years.
At the kibbutz, Emily quickly made friends and settled into school. She has varied interests: Brazilian dance, judo, volleyball, tennis and piano. She loves gymnastics. She excels at academics. “This year she wanted to learn the guitar. I hope that happens,” her father said.
Emily, he said, is a leader among her friends. “She didn’t demand to be. People simply adopted her,” he mentioned.
Emily‘s life includes her father’s now ex-wife, Narkis Hand, and two older kids from his marriage that ended greater than 20 years in the past. Emily stays shut with Narkis and her now-grown half-siblings, together with 26-year-old Natalie. They additionally reside at Be’eri, a tight-knit neighborhood Hand found as a volunteer earlier than he determined to remain 30 years in the past.
“Emily loved cooking so Emily and Natalie would cook together,” mentioned Hand, a Dublin native. “Narkis really became Emily‘s second mother. Even Narkis’ mother, she became a second grandmother.”
In a message to her sister, Natalie instructed The Times of Israel: “I want to tell you that we are doing everything to get you home. We know you are being held hostage. We love you so much and miss you.”
Hand was in New York for media interviews but in addition to unveil a billboard of Emily on Friday in Times Square. It’s the primary of tons of to go up across the United States with photos of the hostages as some protesters proceed to tear down “kidnapped” posters. A billboard, Hand mentioned, can’t be ripped aside.
“Can you imagine what that poor little child is going through every single day, terrified for her life?” he mentioned. “Death. Death in my head is an easier option.”
