A father has described the moment that rescue teams told him that they had recovered the body of his eight-year-old daughter in Israel after Hamas militants stormed their kibbutz.
Thomas Hand, originally from Ireland, became separated from Emily when the incident happened early on Saturday.
Mr Hand told CNN that he felt nothing but relief on learning that his daughter’s body had been recovered as being abducted and brought into Palestine would be “worse than death” for the girl.
“They just said ‘we found Emily, and she’s dead’ and I went ‘yes’. Yes. I smiled because that is the best news of the possibilities I knew. That was the best possibility that I was hoping for,” he said during an interview.
“She was either dead or in Gaza. And if you know anything about what they do to people in Gaza, that it’s worse than death as well. That’s the way they treat you.
“They’d have no food, no water. She’d be in a dark room filled with Christ knows how many people and terrified every minute, hour, day and possibly for years to come. So death was a blessing, an absolute blessing.”
Israeli soldiers and rescue teams have been searching kibbutzim, towns and settlements near the Gaza Strip that came under attack by Palestinian terrorists over the weekend and have recovered dozens of bodies. It is estimated that more than 1,200 people, including women and children, were killed and that an estimated 150 more people were abducted.
Israeli retaliation with thousands of air and artillery strikes has killed more than 1,350 Palestinians including hundreds of children, injured more than 6,000, and pushed more than 218,000 from their homes to shelter in UN schools. - Additional reporting Reuters