Israel – The Times of Israel, October 11, 2024
The parents of slain American-Israeli hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin have said they were repeatedly dismissed when they warned the country’s leadership that their son and other captives of Hamas in Gaza could be executed by the terror group.
In an interview that aired Thursday evening, Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg-Polin also said they had rebuffed an offer from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak following the funeral of their son, and had sought distance from other officials as well, accusing them of lacking the necessary sense of urgency or political will to save Israelis kidnapped by Hamas on October 7, 2023.
“There were political decision-makers who, for whatever reasons, did not seize that opportunity, and we missed it,” Polin told Channel 12 news.
Hersh Goldberg-Polin was one of six hostages whose bodies were found in a tunnel in late August — along with Carmel Gat, Ori Danino, Eden Yerushalmi, Almog Sarusi, and Alexander Lobanov — shortly after being executed by their captors, apparently as a result of Israeli troops closing in on the location. The discovery sparked intense anger at the government over its inability to seal a ceasefire agreement that would see at least some hostages freed, and its insistence that only military action will advance a deal.
