Hirsch Goldberg-Polin, who was kidnapped by Hamas militants on Black Saturday on October 7, has not only Israeli but also American citizenship. The Kan-11 television channel reported that the video, published on Wednesday, April 24, by a terrorist group as part of “psychological warfare,” was received by the White House and the FBI.
According to the Israeli television channel, a group specializing in hostage incidents is studying the video at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Experts will try to extract from it as much information as possible that may be useful in the future.
A White House source told the Israeli Kan-11 television channel that Washington received the video of the hostage two days ago.
The video released by Hamas was the first evidence that Hirsch, who was seriously wounded during the abduction, is alive. The date the video was filmed is unknown, but Hirsch mentions that “members of the Israeli government are now sitting at the holiday table” – which suggests that the video was filmed on the eve of Passover. During the kidnapping, Hirsh Goldberg-Polin was wounded, his arm was torn off: the young man, along with others, was hiding in a mobile shelter (“migunite”), where the terrorists threw a grenade. In the video, his left arm is missing below the elbow.
In this video, Hirsch talks about himself: he was born on March 10, 2000 in California (USA), his parents are Jonathan and Rachel, who now live in Jerusalem. Next, the hostage conveys, apparently, a text transmitted by terrorists, the most poignant moments of which the video editor repeated several times.
Hirsch says he has been held captive for “almost 200 days” and all attempts at release have failed. He relays the phrase that “Israeli air bombs killed almost 70 hostages” like him. The hostage repeats Hamas claims that the Israeli government rejects any deal for his release. In this video, the hostage repeatedly appeals to members of the Israeli government demanding the immediate release of the abducted: as is known, Hamas has repeatedly repeated that ending the war and releasing the hostages depends only on Israel’s full compliance with the terrorists’ demands: Israel itself calls these demands unrealistic and unfulfillable.
The hostage’s relatives allowed Israeli television channels to broadcast excerpts from this video. The mother of the abducted man, Rachel Goldberg-Pauline, who was named by Time magazine in the TOP 100 most influential people of 2023, said a few days ago: “We have to hope, I believe and I have to believe, that he will return to us.”