Thomas Hand has spent weeks mourning the death of his eight-year-old daughter, Emily.
He was told by Israeli authorities that she was murdered in Kibbutz Be’eri, a close-knit community where Hamas carried out a massacre.
But today he is sitting on the balcony of a hotel overlooking the Dead Sea, reacting to the news his daughter is now believed to be a hostage in Gaza.
“We’re very, very happy,” he tells me, “that there’s a chance that she’s alive and will come out of it, no matter how broken, physically or mentally. We’re going to have to fix her. It’s going to take years, but we want her back.”
His eyes fill with tears as he says: “We want to hug her again. We want to see her dancing again, singing.”
Israel-Gaza latest: Gaza becoming ‘graveyard for children’
Emily and Thomas Hand
Emily Hand is thought to have been kidnapped and taken to Gaza
She was having a sleepover at a friend’s house when Hamas stormed in and started opening fire in the kibbutz.
Her half-sister Nathalie shows me video Emily filmed on the morning the attack unfolded, huddled with her friend and her friend’s mother in the basement of their home.
“We’re in the safe room with our toys,” she says,