The consequences of 50 days of captivity. Emily, a 9-year-old Irish-Israeli girl who was freed by Hamas on Saturday, is "terrified of making noise" and only "whispers," her father Tom Hand told The Sun. "When she came back, I literally had to put my ear to her lips to hear what she was saying," he said in an interview published Wednesday. "She used to be a normal, happy, noisy kid but now she's whispering," he continues. "She must have been ordered to be quiet for so long that she is still terrified of making noise."
Emily, who turned 9 on November 17 while a hostage, was kidnapped by Hamas on October 7 while staying at the home of a friend, 13-year-old Hila, on Kibbutz Beeri. Her friend was also released on Saturday. Emily, whose mother died of cancer when she was two-and-a-half years old, was initially announced dead before being classified as a hostage.
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In the interview with The Sun, her father said she was constantly moved by Hamas to escape the Israeli army. The truce between Israel and Hamas entered its sixth day on Wednesday with a new expected exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners.
60 Israeli hostages freed
Every day since Friday, Hamas has released a dozen women and children kidnapped in its bloody October 7 attack on Israel, in exchange for the release of three times as many Palestinian prisoners. The truce agreement, negotiated with the support of Egypt and the United States, has already led to the release of 60 Israeli hostages and 180 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
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Israeli authorities estimated that around 240 people were abducted and taken to Gaza on 7 October, in the unprecedented attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement that killed 1,200 people in Israel, the vast majority of them civilians.
In retaliation, Israel vowed to "annihilate" Hamas and relentlessly bombed the Gaza Strip until the truce on November 24. According to the Hamas government, 14,854 people, including 6,150 under the age of 18, were killed in the Israeli strikes.