Israel-Hamas LIVE: IDF tanks enter Indonesia hospital in Gaza as Qatar says mediators move closer to hostage release deal

Emily Hand turned nine on Friday. Like many little girls around the world, she loves to sing and dance, just like Beyoncé.

But unlike those other girls, Emily “spent her birthday in the Gaza tunnels,” one of dozens of hostages kidnapped by Hamas during the deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel, according to her father Thomas Hand.

‘She wouldn’t even know it was her birthday. She doesn’t know what day it is and what date it is,” Irish-born Hand told the AFP news agency on Sunday, making a heartbreaking appeal for Britain to bring Emily home.

Based on initial information, the 63-year-old thought his daughter was dead.

“But that was a case of mistaken identity,” he said on the sidelines of a protest for the release of more than 200 people held by the Palestinian Islamist group.

The DNA tests did not match, he added.

Watch Mr Hand speak outside Downing Street on Sunday:

“Later we had an eyewitness… (who) saw her being led away by the terrorists in a van to Gaza” after the attack on the Beeri kibbutz, Mr Hand said.

For the father, who moved to Israel at the age of 32, Beeri had been idyllic. “Seriously, it was paradise on earth…until it all shattered” on that “terrifying day.”

The Beeri kibbutz saw some of the worst atrocities when Gaza-based Hamas militants stormed the militarized border, killing about 1,200 people and taking about 240 hostages, according to Israeli officials.