On Wednesday April 24, 2024, more than 200 days after October 7, 2023, Hamas released a video of one of the hostages: 23-year old American Israeli Hersh Goldberg-Polin.
It was the first sign of life from Hersh since the horrific video of October 7, when we had to watch him climb into the back of a pickup truck, covered in blood and missing his left hand.
The video released last Wednesday shows Hersh looking pale, thin and frightened. He blames the Israeli government for not securing a deal with Hamas, for letting many of the hostages die and for making them suffer. He tells Netanyahu to go home and hand over the keys of the government. He shows his amputated left hand, which was blown off by a hand grenade on October 7.
It is hard to put to words what I felt when I saw this video. I cannot imagine how his parents, Rachel and John Goldberg-Polin, are feeling. Relief, because he is alive. Pain, because he is very clearly suffering. Hope, because he might come home. And fear, because he might not.
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Rachel, who has been fighting tirelessly for the release of her son and the other hostages, told the Israeli media:
“We were extremely overwhelmed. We were both crying. And just seeing him, I think I kept saying, poor boy, poor boy, poor boy.”
This is the video released by Hamas. The only full screening I could find was on the Times of India YouTube channel:
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It is important to realize that Hersh is not saying his own thoughts, he is reading off a rehearsed script that Hamas had given him. It is easy to see in his eyes that he is terrified.
The reason there is no hostage deal is because Hamas refuses to accept any offer. They have turned down four offers up until now, the last time was on April 14. It is not because of Netanyahu that there is no hostage deal.
The main problem is that Hamas demands an immediate, permanent end to the war. The Israeli government is not willing to leave Gaza without conquering the last remaining Hamas stronghold: Rafah. This is where the hostages are thought to be held.
Hamas also demands the release of all Palestinian prisoners currently held in Israeli prisons. Many of these are dangerous criminals and terrorists.
I don’t know what the right thing to do is. On the one hand, we all desperately want to see the hostages return home to their families. But to give up on eradicating Hamas? This sounds terrifying. They will just resume their reign of terror in Gaza. The Gazan people are traumatized and hate Israel a thousand times more than before. The entire world hates Israel a thousand times more than before. They will attack again one day, and again, and again. We must make sure a massacre like October 7 can NEVER happen again.
So, I don’t have the answers. I don’t make the decisions. I wait and hope, as I did before. And I pray that Hersh and the others will make it home.
Hersh Goldberg-Polin is a happy, energetic, sociable young man of 23 years old. He enjoyed life and had many plans for the future. He was supposed to leave on a two-year trip travelling the world on December 27, 2023. But in the first weekend of October, he decided to go to a music festival in the desert with his friends. That decision would turn his life in a completely different, terrifying direction.
Jonathan Polin and Rachel Goldberg are both from Chicago. They moved to Israel in 2008 with their three young children: Hersh, the oldest, and his two sisters, Libi and Orly. They settled in Jerusalem. Hersh was a gentle and sensitive boy, who loved reading (mostly in English), football and travelling. At first, he struggled with the new language and the unfamiliar surroundings, but after about a year, he found his place in Israel. He made friends, joined a soccer team and learned to read in Hebrew.
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When Hersh grew up, he discovered dance parties and travel. He often went to raves with friends and visited parties in different European countries. He loved travelling and seeing new places. Like so many young people, he wanted to see the world and go on adventures. He worked as a waiter and a medic to save money for his ticket to India, on December 27.
On Friday, October 6, Hersh spent the evening with his family and they had dinner and welcomed the Shabbath together. Afterwards, he went out with his friend, Aner Shapira. He told his parents he was going to do “something fun”, but they didn’t know what yet. Jonathan and Rachel said goodbye to their son and went to bed. Early the next morning, they were woken up by sirens and rocket fire. They went to their safe room and waited, confused and worried about what was happening. Then Rachel got two messages from her son: “I love you guys” and “I’m sorry”.
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Hersh and Aner had gone to the Supernova music festival the night before. They had danced through the night and enjoyed themselves. But at 6:30 in the morning, the party turned into a nightmare. Terrorists on paragliders landed in the middle of the crowd and started shooting. Others drove in with cars and motorcycles. People screamed, gunshots rang out and the battlecry “Allahu akhbar!!” was heard, over and over again, repeated with every shot.
Hersh and Aner ran for their lives and managed to reach a bomb shelter. They hid inside with 27 other people, crammed into the small space.
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But Hamas found them. The terrorists threw a number of handgrenades into the crowded bomb shelter. Aner Shapira, Hersh’s friend, caught the grenades one by one and threw them out again. The eighth one exploded in his hand and killed him instantly. Another few grenades were thrown in, exploded and killed eighteen people in that shelter. Seven people survived, hidden under the bodies, and later told the story.
A video posted by Hamas later showed us exactly what happened. Four young men in the shelter were alive but exposed. The terrorists came in and ordered them to leave the shelter at gunpoint, and to climb into a truck. Their cameras show Hersh getting up, dazed but calm, covered in blood. His left arm is missing, blown off at the elbow.
He manages to climb into the truck with the others. Another video shows the truck with the hostages arriving in Gaza, and it shows that Hersh had a tourniquet around his left arm.
Since then, nothing was heard from or about Hersh Goldberg-Polin. Released hostages say they haven’t seen him. He is assumed to be a hostage, but it is possible that he didn’t survive his injury.
Aner Shapiro, 22 years old, was dead. He was honoured as a hero by those who survived the massacre inside that bomb shelter. They said he had immediately told everyone: “I’m a fighter in the Nahal brigade, I will protect you.” He stood in the doorway of the shelter and caught the grenades as the terrorists threw them. Until one of them exploded in his hands. He showed incredible bravery in the face of terror and evil, to protect others. The seven who survived, owe him their lives.
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Jonathan and Rachel Goldberg-Polin were beside themselves with worry and fear for their son, and they immediately jumped into action. Rachel has become the face of mothers trying to save their children from captivity in Gaza. She has given up her job as a teacher to work fulltime for the release of the hostages. She and Jonathan set up an office to help the families of hostages, staffed with a press agent, a social media expert and many volunteers. They travelled to the USA and spoke to the crowd at a march in Washington DC. Rachel spoke twice at the UN headquarters in Geneva. She met with presidents and prime ministers and even travelled to the Vatican to meet the Pope.
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Rachel hardly sleeps anymore. She wakes up at 4 AM from a drug-induced sleep, and starts working on social media, publicity and prayers. Every day, she writes the number of days that her son has been missing on a piece of tape and sticks it on her shirt, over her heart. She refuses to eat more than a little each day, because from the stories of released hostages, she knows that her son gets very little food.
Since October 7, Rachel runs on anxiety and adrenaline. She fights and prays, breaks down and cries, then picks herself up again and continues fighting, speaking out and doing every single thing she can think of to help her son. She and Jonathan have heard nothing, no news at all about Hersh. They don’t know if he got medical treatment for his injuries. They don’t know if he is being mistreated by terrorists and spends his days in the tunnels or if he is being held in a civilian home. They don’t even know if he is alive or dead.
Rachel’s speech at the rally in Washington DC was one of the most powerful things I have ever seen. The pure energy coming from this small, frail woman is awe-inspiring. I can only show you, so you can see for yourself:
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Her cry of “Why??” goes straight through my heart. Why, indeed? Why did this horror have to happen? What good has this done for anyone, Palestinian or Israeli or anyone else?
I have deep respect and admiration for Rachel. What she does is incredible. She is truly a lioness. I also feel desperately sad for her. The pain she and her family are going through is unimaginable.
All I can do is hope and pray that Hersh is alive, that he is ok and that he will come home. Soon. And all this terrible torture can end. As I write this, Israel’s army is standing by the gates of Rafah. The world is pressuring us to give up the fight and not enter Rafah. But how can we? How can we leave Hersh, and all the others, to their fate in Gaza?
We know from Avera Mengistu and many others, that Hamas does not release hostages and prefers to kill themselves and all their people before they give us back what we want: our loved ones.
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