Hostages' relatives and supporters protest in Tel Aviv last month to demand a ceasefire and the release of those held in Gaza. Photo / Heidi Levine for the Washington Post
Hostages' relatives and supporters protest in Tel Aviv last month to demand a ceasefire and the release of those held in Gaza. Photo / Heidi Levine for the Washington Post
Israelis reacted with shock and fury today NZT after the bodies of six more hostages were recovered by the military from Gaza, with Israeli authorities saying they were killed by their captors in recent days.
Hundreds of thousands of protesters took part in nationwide demonstrations , and Israel’s largest labour union called for a general strike tomorrow - threatening to shut down the country until Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agrees to a deal with Hamas to return the remaining captives.
Among those recovered at the weekend from Gaza by the Israeli military was Israeli American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, whose parents have become globally known ambassadors for the hostage family movement and who spoke last month at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
“Needing our only son - and all of the cherished hostages - home is not a political issue. It is a humanitarian issue,” Jon Polin, Hersh’s father, said at the time.
Their son’s remains were found alongside the bodies of Carmel Gat, 40; Eden Yerushalmi, 24; Alexander Lobanov, 32; Almog Sarusi, 27; and Ori Danino, 25.
The Israel Defence Forces said they were killed by Hamas “shortly before” being retrieved from a tunnel, several dozen metres deep, in the southern Gazan city of Rafah. It was roughly a kilometre from the tunnel where the IDF rescued a living hostage, Bedouin Israeli Farhan al-Qadi, last week.
The bodies were taken to the National Centre of Forensic Medicine, where an examination determined the six had been killed by “multiple close-range gunshots” within the last 48 to 72 hours, according to Shira Solomon, a spokesperson for Israel’s Health Ministry.
Hamas, in a statement, blamed Israeli bombings for the deaths, adding that “if [United States] President [Joe] Biden is concerned about their lives, he must stop supporting this enemy with money and weapons and pressure the occupation to end its aggression immediately”.
Hamas is still holding 97 hostages, including two children under the age of 5. Of those, 33 have already been declared dead by Israeli authorities.
Over nearly 11 months of agonising uncertainty, many of the hostage families have accused Netanyahu of prioritising his political survival over a deal that would bring their loved ones home, and today they demanded that he address the nation.
What they got instead was a recorded statement from his office: “The fact that Hamas continues to commit atrocities like the ones it committed on the 7th of October obliges us to do everything so that it cannot commit these atrocities again”, Netanyahu said.
“Whoever murders hostages does not want a deal,” he said, saying Hamas has refused “to conduct real negotiations”.
Yet it is Netanyahu, negotiators say, who has been one of the main barriers to a deal.
He has insisted on maintaining an Israeli presence along the Philadelphi Corridor, a strategic buffer zone between Gaza and Egypt that Israel says is used by Hamas to smuggle weapons, a claim denied by Cairo.
Last week, the Israeli Cabinet voted to remain in the corridor, despite warnings from high-ranking members of the security establishment that the move could torpedo a deal.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, who has emerged as one of the most vociferous critics of Netanyahu’s war strategy, demanded today that the “Cabinet must gather immediately and reverse the decision”.
Protesters knelt in the streets and held up pictures of the hostages as Netanyahu and his ministers met in Jerusalem.
The six captives recovered at the weekend, violently abducted from a music festival and a nearby kibbutz in southern Israel on October 7, had been classified as alive by the IDF, which had a general assessment of their location.
At least four of them - including Goldberg-Polin - were presumed to be on the list of hostages who would be released in the event of a US-brokered ceasefire.
In a statement, Biden said that after months of working alongside Goldberg-Polin’s parents and the families of other Israeli American hostages, he was “devastated and outraged” by the news of his death.
“Make no mistake, Hamas leaders will pay for these crimes,” he said. “And we will keep working around the clock for a deal to secure the release of the remaining hostages.”
Protesters gather to demand a Gaza hostages deal in Tel Aviv, Israel. Photo / Getty Images
US Vice-President Kamala Harris condemned Hamas’s brutality in a statement, calling Goldberg-Polin’s death a “terrible loss”.
Nearly 1200 people were killed and more than 250 hostages dragged back to Gaza by Hamas militants on October 7. During a one-week pause in fighting in late November, 105 hostages were released.
Only eight hostages have been rescued alive by the IDF. Their fate has captivated Israel, with each sign of life a source of fleeting hope, and each recovered body and death notice a new trauma.
Families of the hostages and their supporters have flooded the streets of Tel Aviv again and again demanding that Netanyahu agree to a ceasefire that would secure the release of the hostages, even if it means compromising on his promise of “total victory” over Hamas.
Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, an Israeli military spokesman, has repeatedly said that only a negotiated deal would bring back most of them; Gallant has said the IDF is prepared to pay whatever operational price is required for their freedom.
In Tel Aviv, the demonstrators seemed to come from all directions, many carrying Israeli flags. “Alive, alive, we want them alive,” one group chanted to drums.
Sefi and Deborah, two elderly women from a kibbutz in central Israel that is hosting evacuees from a community near the Gaza border and who did not give their last names, said they have attended protests every week, “but today is different”. A trio of high school students said it was their first demonstration.
In speech after speech, former hostages and their families addressed Netanyahu directly. Ilana Gritsevski, released in November after 55 days in captivity, accused him of “perpetrating psychological terror on us like Hamas perpetrated on us”.
“Enough with the lies, enough with the spins,” demanded Lishay Lavi Miran, wife of hostage Omri Miran. “Enough trying to divide us.”
Dozens of restaurants, theatres, businesses and municipalities announced that they were shutting their doors in solidarity with the protests, and the national workers union announced the open-ended general strike.
“We can no longer stand by while our children are suffering and being murdered in the tunnels of Gaza,” Arnon Bar-David, the head of the Histadrut labour union, said in a statement after meeting hostage families. “This is unacceptable, and it must stop.”
Aviva Siegel, a former Israeli hostage whose husband, Keith, a dual American and Israeli citizen, is still being held in Gaza, said that although she has lost faith in the Israeli Government, she hopes the grim news will finally force a deal into existence.
“I remember being there and feeling death above my head all the time,” said Siegel, who plans to participate in the demonstrations. “We need to scream aloud for them to be brought home. I’m not going to lose my hope. That would break me into pieces.“
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, an umbrella organisation representing most of the hostages’ families, said in a statement that the six “were taken alive, endured the horrors of captivity, and were then coldly murdered”.
It added that a deal for their return had been “on the table” for two months. It blamed their deaths on “delays, sabotage, and excuses”.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said the “heart of an entire nation is shattered to pieces” and apologised to the families for failing to bring them back safely.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid took aim at Netanyahu’s Government, saying the deaths could have been prevented through an agreement.
“Instead of saving lives, hostages are being buried. Instead of doing everything to bring them home, Netanyahu is doing all he can to stay in power,” he said.
Four of the recovered hostages - Yerushalmi, Lobanov, Sarusi and Danino - were laid to rest. Goldberg-Polin will be buried in a ceremony in Jerusalem tomorrow.
Goldberg-Polin was celebrating his 23rd birthday at the Nova music festival when it was overrun by gunmen.
“With broken hearts, the Goldberg-Polin family is devastated to announce the death of their beloved son and brother, Hersh,” the family said, thanking their supporters and appealing for privacy.
At the DNC in August, Rachel Goldberg-Polin said her son’s “left forearm, his dominant arm, was blown off before he was loaded onto a pick-up truck and stolen from his life - and me and Jon - into Gaza”.
“That was 320 days ago,” she said. “Since then, we live on another planet.”
In April, Hersh Goldberg-Polin appeared in a propaganda video released by Hamas, reading from an apparently scripted statement condemning Netanyahu.
The hostage families forum paid tribute to all the deceased captives. Lobanov was a father-of-two, including a baby born while he was in captivity who is now 2 months’ old.
Gat was an occupational therapist who loved solo travel. Danino was planning to start his studies to become an engineer. Sarusi, it said, was at the Nova festival with his girlfriend, who was murdered.
Yerushalmi was described as a devoted sister who spoke to her family for hours as she tried to escape the Hamas attack. She was buried in Petah Tikva, wrapped in the Israeli flag.
Her father collapsed at the start of the funeral, reading his eulogy from a chair set up by paramedics. Her mother, Sarit, remembered her “rolling laughter”.
“You were not only my daughter, you were my best friend,” she said. “You are always with me.”
