Thomas Hand has said the 'beautiful' reunion with his daughter Emily was 'just like he imagined it'.

The nine-year-old Irish-Israeli girl was released on Saturday after being held by Hamas for 50 days.

She was transported to Egypt before being identified by the Red Cross and flown to a hospital in Israel.

Dublin-born Thomas told CNN of the moment he was reunited with his daughter.

"They said that she should be here in a couple of minutes. I'm like, 'Wow I don't believe it'," he said.

"All of a sudden the door opened up and she just ran. It was beautiful - just like I imagined it, you know, running together.

"I squeezed, I probably squeezed too hard."

'She was just whispering'

Thomas said his daughter had lost a lot of weight and colour in her face.

"The most shocking, disturbing part of meeting her was she was just whispering. I couldn't hear her," he said.

" I had to put my ear on her lips, like this close, and say, what did you say? And [she said] 'I thought you were kidnapped'.

"She thought I was in captivity."

In this photo provided by the Israeli Army, Emily Hand reunites with her father Thomas, 26-11-23. Image: Associated Press / Alamy

Thomas said he believed his daughter was being held in tunnels under Gaza, but this wasn't the case.

"They were actually fleeing from house to house," he said.

"She doesn't like it to be referred to as Gaza, she says 'the box'.

"So you have say, 'How long were you in the box?' She said a year.

"Apart from the whispering that was like a punch in the gut".

Thomas said he also had to tell Emily that his ex-wife was killed on October 7th.

"That was very hard because we told her and her little eyes glazed up and she just took a sharp intake of breath," he said.

"A terrible thing to tell a child, but they recommend that you have to close the book.

"It sounds cruel, but you have to stop that hope.

"You've got to stop that - it has to be final," he said as his voice broke.

Next steps

Thomas said the next step is to get Emily back to full health.

"The future is obviously to get Emily back to health, and we will do that along the way," he said.

"The next thing is that we have to get all the children, obviously, all the women, all the men - all the hostages have to be brought back," he added.

An extended truce between Israel and Hamas entered its final day on Wednesday.

Main image: Emily Hand reunited with her father, Dublin-born Tom Hand, in an Israeli hospital, 25/11/2023. Image: AP/Alamy