On Saturday night, during a rally in Hostages’ Square in central Tel Aviv, two young girls who usually avoid the spotlight stepped forward, feeling they could no longer stay silent. "I told Emily I was speaking at the rally and asked if she wanted to, too," said Tom Hand, Emily’s father. "At first, she said no, but as we waited backstage, she suddenly said, ‘Actually, I want to speak.’"
The strength Emily, 10, and her friend Hila Rotem Shoshani, 14, displayed that evening, after surviving 50 days in captivity in Gaza alongside Raaya, Hila’s mother, was the same strength that helped them endure their ordeal.
"She saw me practicing my speech, and I suggested she end it with something like ‘Bring them home,’" Tom said. "But she asked for a pen and paper, wrote her own speech in five minutes, and it was absolutely brilliant."
"Hila has grown up a lot," said Raaya, a year after their release from Hamas captivity in a prisoner-for-hostage exchange deal. "She went through so much and became tougher, but at the same time new feelings have surfaced. She struggles to sleep at night; she’s not as happy as she used to be. We’re constantly thinking about what’s happening and about Noa (Argamani) and Itay (Svirsky), whom we left behind. Every noise startles us. We don't get to walk away scar-free."
(Days after this interview, the IDF announced that it had recovered Itay Svirsky's body from Gaza in a special operation; He was killed by his Hamas captors in January.)
Emily and Tom’s daily routine has also changed. "In Be’eri, we used to wake up early in the morning, and I’d take her to the bus for school," Tom recounted. "Now, in Hatzor, she rides her bike to school. She’s very independent – she always has been. I didn’t raise my kids in a bubble, and Emily has a strong personality. Maybe that’s why she was able to come back from there the way she did. But still – Emily is 10 years old, and she won’t sleep in her bed alone.
"Up until three months ago, we were living in a hotel with two single beds facing each other. Now, she falls asleep with me in my bed. Recently, I started thinking that maybe she doesn’t want to sleep in her room because it’s the safe room, and that’s where she was taken from. She even prefers to sleep in the living room. When she showers, she uses the less comfortable bathroom near the living room so she knows I’m just on the other side of the wall. During the day, she moves between school, the dog kennel, and kibbutz activities. She’s never alone."
Emily and Hila were released before Raaya and didn’t know when she would return. "Hila came home early in the morning on her birthday. In captivity, we had planned to celebrate her birthday, and then she came home, and I stayed behind. This year, we did a small correction – I made her the cake we’d talked about back then. But nothing feels like a real celebration; you don’t really feel like being happy. You just think about those still there. Every day, we were given a small bottle of water to last the entire day. Now, whenever I take water, that image comes to mind. Will this be enough for me? When I eat, I feel a sense of privilege. What are they eating?
"When I said goodbye to Itay, we planned to have a reunion in Israel. We believed there would be more exchanges, but we saw things weren’t moving in the direction we had hoped. When Noa came back, we breathed a little easier, but until everyone is back, we can’t truly breathe. It’s hard for us to leave the house, but Hila tells me, ‘Come on, put on a mask, and let’s go outside.’ In captivity, we said that when we returned, we’d travel, go abroad, and find peace. That hasn’t happened yet – we haven’t gone on vacation. Life feels like it’s on hold. We’re not really living; we’re just functioning."
"I don’t know if I’ll ever feel like a regular kid," Hila said. "First, they need to bring back all the hostages, and maybe we need to return to Kibbutz Be’eri. I feel like I have a home in Hatzor, but it’s not the home. I want to go back to Be’eri, but it depends on what changes – if we’ll truly feel safer there. And yes, I want to go on a long trip with Mom, maybe to Thailand."
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"Honestly, for us to heal, everyone needs to come back," Tom concluded. "We feel it all the time. In the house next to us, the parents were murdered; on the other side, there’s another neighbor whose brother was killed. Nirit, the nurse who was in the clinic during the attack, lived near us but has left the community. Her house will likely go to Raz Ben-Ami, who has returned but is still waiting for her husband, Ohad. We’re surrounded by it; we feel it constantly. It’s always on our minds, and the weight is heavy on our chests. The dream is to bring them all back and, eventually, to return to Be’eri.
Emily and Hila are reunited with their fathers after their return from Hamas captivity in Gaza
(צילום: דובר צה"ל)
"In the end, I could have gone back to live in England at any moment. I came here just to volunteer, but when I arrived, this place chose me. I fell in love with this place—with Be’eri, with Israel, and with Israelis. We want to return to the kibbutz, but it all depends on three things: the state of Hamas, who will lead the army that let us down so deeply, and, of course, who will lead the country. As for the current leadership—I don’t trust them."