The father of an Irish-Israeli girl kidnapped by Hamas and once thought murdered fears he endangered her by initially saying he was glad she was dead… and vows ‘I won’t take her out lose sight’ when she is brought back

A father who believed for weeks that his eight-year-old daughter was massacred by Hamas on October 7 has admitted he has “regrets” for initially saying he was “glad” she was dead.

Irish-Israeli Emily Hand is believed to be one of at least 130 people killed in the massacre at Kibbutz Be’eri, where she was staying with her friend for a sleepover.

Her Irish father, Thomas Hand, initially said he was relieved to hear his daughter was deadbecause he was more terrified of the way she would have been treated by Hamas terrorists and the conditions she would face in captivity.

That was until this week, when he revealed that after a month of mourning, Israeli authorities told his family that the schoolgirl is likely a Hamas hostage being held somewhere in the besieged Gaza Strip.

Mr Hand has admitted he regrets his words and says he fears he has ‘put her in danger’.

Speaking to the BBCsaid Mr Hand: ‘In some ways I regret that interview. Just because of some of the things I said. There are things that might have put her in danger.”

But he continued to insist he had to ‘move on’ and expressed his family’s desperate desire to get their little girl back.

“Now there is hope,” he said. “We can only hope we get her back alive… We just want her back. We want to see her again, love her again, hug her and kiss her again. I will never let her out of my sight,” he added.

Mr Hand then opened up about his devastation that Emily would be celebrating her ninth birthday alone.

He explained: ‘Her birthday is this month, the 17th, and she won’t even know it. No cake, no party, no friends.

“She will still live there in fear every day,” he said.

Yesterday Mr Hand told of his desperation to get his daughter back Sky News: ‘We want to hug her again. We want to see her dancing and singing again.’

Mr Hand, who is not Jewish and was born in Dún Laoghaire, near Dublin, described his daughter as an “innocent angel” whose passion was music.

Asked why it had initially been a relief to the family when they learned Emily was dead, Mr Hand said: ‘Because [was] not because of what she’s going through now.

“It will break any normal person, a month of captivity under any circumstances… so yes, at the time it was a relief.”

“But now we are very, very happy,” he continued, “that there is a chance that she is still alive and will come out, no matter how broken she is, physically or mentally.

‘We’ll have to fix her. It will take years, but we want her back.’

He said if he could tell Emily one thing it would be to “be strong.” “We know you are strong, come back,” he said.

He added that despite his young age, his daughter has an “amazing internal strength and spirit.”

Through tears, he said that if his daughter got home safely, “I won’t let her out of my sight…I just want to hold her and never let her go.”

Revealing details of the painstaking investigation carried out at the scene of the massacre, Mr Hand said he had been told there was no evidence his daughter had been killed there.

He said no blood was found around or near the house that matched Emily or her friend’s DNA: “They were dragged to Gaza, we assume.”

He added that two cellphones belonging to Emily’s friend and her mother have been traced to Gaza, which he said is only “an indicator” as the phones could have easily been stolen.

Emily’s half-sister, Nathalie, told Sky that she had received a video of the little girl hiding in a safe room the morning Hamas launched its bloody invasion of southern Israel.

“We’re in the safe room with our toys,” the little girl reportedly says in the clip sent before they lost contact.

Mr Hand has said he now struggles to imagine where Emily could be, suggesting the terrorist group may be holding her in its network of tunnels.

He said the family began the grieving process when they were told Emily was probably not dead.

‘I went from feeling like the nightmare was over to, OK, I’m back in it. “We’re all back in it now,” he said.

Ireland’s Justice Minister Helen McEntee said this week that the government was doing everything it could to support Emily’s family.

Ms McEntee told RTE: ‘This is a hugely traumatic situation for her family and for any family held hostage with their loved one.

“We are doing everything we can to support this family and others and ensure people can be returned safely to their families.

“From the very beginning, we have called on Hamas to release any hostages. And where Irish citizens are involved, every effort has of course been made to support them.”

Hamas terrorists stormed into Israel in their thousands from Gaza, massacring civilians in the border area surrounding the area. Israel says about 1,400 people were killed, making it the deadliest terror attack in the country’s history.

Gunmen shot dead families in their own homes. Children and even babies were found shot dead in cold blood and even decapitated, officials said.

In response, Israel unleashed a brutal bombardment and siege of Gaza, killing thousands and leaving millions with rapidly dwindling supplies.

The country also launched a ground offensive and has now surrounded Gaza City, where about 1.1 million people lived before the war. Many have now fled south.

The Health Ministry in Gaza, which is run by Hamas, says more than 9,770 people, many of them women and children, have been killed in Israeli strikes and the intensification of the ground campaign in the month since the attack.

Last month, Mr Hand told the Irish times of his daughter: ‘She was an angel and she actually looked like an angel. She was very social and loved music.

‘She sang all day in the house and she loved to dance. She watched Beyoncé videos; she was her favorite and picked up the moves very quickly.

“She was always chosen for the dance routines on the kibbutz stage during the holidays – always front and center, so if the other kids forgot the steps they could just watch Emily. She was exceptional.”

So far, five hostages have been released, four of them after negotiations through diplomatic back channels and one after an Israeli army operation.