Gantz slams Irish PM for comments on Gaza hostage Emily Hand, 9, being ‘lost’ and ‘found’

By Carrie Keller-Lynn 26 November 2023, 12:05 pm

12 Edit

Carrie Keller-Lynn is a former political and legal correspondent for The Times of Israel

Emily Hand was abducted from a friend's home in Kibbutz Be'eri on October 7, 2023. She was initially thought to have been killed. (Courtesy)

War cabinet minister Benny Gantz pans remarks by the Irish prime minister that a 9 year old former hostage was “lost” and then “found,” upon her Saturday release from 50 days in Palestinian terrorist captivity.

“Emily was never ‘Lost’ – she was brutally kidnapped and held hostage by terrorist Hamas,” Gantz writes on X, in response to Taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s statement upon the release of Israeli-Irish citizen Emily Hand.

Hand was kidnapped from Kibbutz Be’eri while at a sleepover, and was presumed dead before later being confirmed as one of the 240 hostages taken into the Gaza Strip on October 7.

“After 50 days held hostage in Gaza and while celebrating her 9th birthday surrounded by Hamas terrorists armed with Kalashnikovs and knives, after her father mourned her loss in front of the whole world, her father will now need to tell Emily that her stepmother was murdered by those same Hamas terrorists only 6 years after losing her biological mother to cancer,” Gantz continues.

Gantz’s remarks join condemnations by other Israeli officials.