“That’s terrifying. Being pulled, dragged, pushed … under gunfire probably,” he said.
Emily told him that “‘nobody hit us” during the 50 days she spent in captivity, but that children were only able to draw and play cards, and were warned not to make any noise.
“The most shocking, disturbing part of meeting her was she was just whispering, you couldn’t hear her.
“I had to put my ear on her lips. She’d been conditioned not to make any noise … You could just see glassy-eyed terror,” Thomas said.
When Emily was asked how long she thought she had been gone she replied “a year,” her dad said.
“Apart from the whispering, that was a punch in the guts. A year,” said Thomas told the outlet.
Emily was released alongside her friend Hila Rotem-Shoshani.
The pair had been held with Hila’s mother, Raaya, who is thought to still be trapped in the Gaza Strip.
“[Raaya] looked after them like her own two kids” until they were split up two days before the girls were released, Thomas said.
Thomas Hand was initially told that Emily, who had been staying over at Hila’s house in Kibbutz Be’eri when Hamas unleashed a wave of terrorist attacks on October 7, had been killed.
His heartbreaking reaction last month that his daughter dying and being spared further pain was the “best possibility” sparked international headlines.
But several weeks later, Thomas learned that his daughter hadn’t been identified among the remains at Be’eri and that she was now believed to be among the hostages being held in Gaza.
The pair were finally reunited on Saturday.
“All of a sudden the door opened up and she just ran. It was beautiful, just like I had imagined it, running together. I probably squeezed her too hard,” he told CNN.
But the family’s attention quickly turned to the effect two months of captivity had had on Emily.
“It was only when she stepped back that I could see her face was chiseled, like mine, whereas before it was chubby, girly, a young kid face,” Thomas said of his daughter, who returned with a head full of lice.
He said Emily and Hila are now looking out for one another as they readjust to normal life.
They held a celebration for Hila’s 13th birthday with a cake at the hospital on Monday and also had a cake for a belated ninth birthday celebration for Emily, after spending Nov. 17 imprisoned in Gaza.
Thomas explained that Emily’s mother died when she was just two, and on her return was also faced with the loss of her “second mom,” Hand’s former wife, Narkis Hand.
Narkis was tragically killed by Hamas militants in Kibbutz Be’eri.
“That was very hard. We told her and her little eyes glazed over and she took a sharp intake of breath,” he said.
Thomas said he was worried that Emily would be angry at him for not rescuing her from her captives.
But when they were finally together again, she told him she had been worried he was kidnapped too.
“Last night she cried until her face was red and blotchy, she couldn’t stop. She didn’t want any comfort, I guess she’s forgotten how to be comforted. She went under the covers of the bed, the quilt, covered herself up, and quietly cried,” Thomas said.
“We’ll only know what she really went through as she opens up. I want to know so much information … but you have to let them, when they are ready, come out with it.”
Thomas told CNN that his focus going forward is Emily’s recovery and doing everything he can to help bring the rest of the hostages, including Raaya, back safely.
“We have to get Raaya back for Hila, back for Emily, back for justice. Don’t go silent on us now. Bring them home, bring them home,” he urged.
