Hamas releases video of Californian Hersh Goldberg-Polin

TEL AVIV —

He looked pale but sounded calm. And somehow he looked both younger and older than his 23 years.

“Mom, Dada, Leebi and Orly, I love you, I miss you,” Hersh Goldberg-Polin said, looking directly into the camera and addressing his parents and two sisters. “And I think about you every day.”

The Palestinian militant group Hamas released a minute-and-42-second video Thursday evening of the Berkeley-born U.S.-Israeli citizen who was killed last week along with five other Israeli hostages in a tunnel under the Gaza Strip. They had been held for nearly 11 months, kidnapped by Hamas-led attackers in the early hours of the war.

Israeli officials say the six were shot execution-style by their captors last Thursday or Friday as Israeli forces carried out operations nearby in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. News of the discovery of the bodies and the later confirmation of the six’s identities plunged the country into mourning.

The killings sparked huge street demonstrations, with protesters demanding that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reach a ceasefire agreement that would allow the release of dozens of Israeli prisoners believed to still be in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas has often used such films during the war. The Israeli government condemns them as crude propaganda aimed at demoralizing and dividing the country. Israeli media generally do not air them, except for segments specifically approved by families for general viewing.

Presumably made under duress, the Hamas-produced videos consistently featured captives pleading with Israeli leaders to strike a deal for their release, sometimes offering harsh criticism of the Israeli government’s failure to do so. This video was no different, with criticism also leveled at the Biden administration.

It is not known when Hamas made the recordings of each of the six people. But there was at least one hint that the recordings may have been made several months ago; one of the dead hostages, Carmel Gat, described herself as 39. She turned 40 in May.

Hamas released the first snippets of the hostage video on Sunday, just hours after Israeli officials confirmed the killings and the names of those killed. The footage, which showed each of the six reciting their last names and hometowns, was posted on a channel on the Telegram messaging app linked to Hamas’s armed wing, as were longer versions released throughout the week.

In the first, a 24-year-old hostage named Eden Yerushalmi, who appeared gaunt and had dark circles under her eyes, told her family she loved and missed them. But she also wagged her finger, complaining about her continued captivity and the lack of action by the Israeli government to free her and others.

Her family called the recording a “shocking psychological video” in a statement.

Goldberg-Polin’s American-born parents had waged a high-profile international campaign to try to win his release, and to much of the outside world he was a familiar face, a familiar symbol of the hostages’ plight. Perhaps because of that prominence, Hamas saved the release of his tape for last.

In this book, a young man with a light beard and wearing a dark red shirt described the difficult living conditions in captivity.

“Since I arrived in Gaza, I have survived with almost no medical care, little food, little water,” he said. “I don’t remember the last time I saw the sun or got some fresh air.”

However, he expressed hope for freedom, saying: “I think I’ll be going home soon.”

In April, another Goldberg-Polin video provided his family with the first evidence that he was in captivity. Until then, they had been unsure whether he had survived the day of his abduction, when a grenade that attackers had thrown into the bomb shelter where he and other participants in an outdoor music festival had taken refuge had severed his left arm below the elbow.

The video shows his bandaged arm. He asks his parents to be strong.

Most of the six, including Goldberg-Polin, were captured during an all-night party in the desert that took place as Hamas gunmen breached the border fence and descended on southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages. Gat, from Tel Aviv, was visiting her mother in a small farming community that was among those attacked.

Israeli retaliatory strikes in Gaza have killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, according to the territory’s health ministry, whose figures do not distinguish between civilians and militants. Nearly the entire population of Gaza has been displaced, hunger and disease are widespread, and entire neighborhoods have been bombed into rubble.

Thousands of people attended Goldberg-Polin’s funeral in Jerusalem on Tuesday, where he was addressed by a succession of speakers, including the country’s president, Isaac Herzog, who asked for forgiveness on behalf of the state of Israel.

His mother, Rachel Goldberg, delivered a poignant complaint.

“My sweet boy,” she said. “You are finally, finally, finally free.”

Journalist Nabih Bulos in Washington contributed to this report.