 "Screengrab")
After Palestinian terrorist group Hamas released a propaganda video of an Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, his parents on Thursday asked him to “stay strong and survive” and also pleaded will all the leaders negotiating the hostage deal to seize the moment and get the truce done to end sufferings.
“Seeing the video of Hersh today is overwhelming. We are relieved to see him alive, but we are also concerned about his health and wellbeing as well as that of all the other hostages and all of those suffering in this region,” a Times of Israel report quoted 23-year-old Goldberg-Polin parents, Rachel Goldberg and Jon Polin, as saying in a statement.
The parents also reached out to the the leaders who have been negotiating for a hostage deal, naming Qatar, Egypt, the United States, Hamas and Israel, to get the deal done and end the sufferings.
“Be brave, lean in, seize this moment and get a deal done to reunite all of us with our loved ones and end the suffering in this region,” they urged.
Impact Shorts
More Shorts“Hersh, we heard your voice today for the first time in 201 days and if you can hear us, we are telling you, we love you, stay strong, survive,” they added.
On Wednesday, the Hamas terror group released a propaganda video showing signs of life from Goldberg-Polin, stirring both relief and concern from his parents, while also igniting anger among protesters near Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence demanding a deal to return the hostages.
In the three-minute video, Goldberg-Polin, who is seen missing one of his hands, vehemently calls for the Israeli government to secure the release of the hostages from Gaza or resign, a sentiment increasingly expressed by some relatives of the abductees.
The video was not dated, but Goldberg-Polin says he has been held captive for “nearly 200 days” and mentions a “festival” several times, indicating it was likely filmed recently, ahead of the week-long Passover holiday, which began on Monday evening.
Posted on Hamas’s official Telegram account, the footage shows Goldberg-Polin, likely speaking under duress, criticizing Netanyahu’s handling of the crisis and the military’s failure to bring the hostages home.
In an apparent reference to Passover, Goldberg-Polin calls on government members, “While you sit and have holiday meals with your families, [to] think of us, the hostages, who are still here in hell,” and “bring us home now.”
He says the hostages have been living “under the ground without water, without food, without sun, without the medical care that I have needed so much for a long, long time.”
“I know you are doing everything for me to return home as soon as possible,” Goldberg-Polin says in the video, addressing his family.
“I need you to stay strong for me and not stop fighting until I and each and every one of the hostages return home safely,” he added.
Goldberg-Polin was taken from the Supernova rave near Re’im on 7 October, during a Hamas-led incursion into Israel that resulted in the deaths of approximately 1,200 people and the abduction of 253 hostages into the Gaza Strip.
It’s reported that 129 hostages, not all of them alive, are still in Gaza. During a weeklong truce in late November, 105 civilians were released from Hamas captivity, with an additional four hostages released earlier. Three hostages were rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 12 hostages, including three mistakenly killed by the military, have been recovered.
The IDF has confirmed that 34 of the hostages still held by Hamas have died, based on new intelligence and findings from operations in Gaza.
Footage from the Hamas attack reveals that part of Goldberg-Polin’s arm was injured when grenades were thrown into a shelter where he and others were seeking refuge.
Hamas has a history of releasing videos of hostages, which Israel condemns as psychological warfare. While most Israeli media typically refrain from directly sharing such videos, Goldberg-Polin’s family permitted their release to the media on Wednesday.
With inputs from agencies