The Israeli military found Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a 23-year-old American-Israeli taken by Hamas from The Nova Music Festival in October, an...
The Israeli military found Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a 23-year-old American-Israeli taken by Hamas from The Nova Music Festival in October, and five other hostages dead in Gaza on Sunday.
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops found the bodies of the six hostages in a tunnel underneath Rafah, a city in southern Gaza that the Biden administration had previously pressured Israel to refrain from invading. A spokesman for the Israeli military said the hostages were killed not long before their bodies were found.
“According to our initial assessment, they were brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists shortly before we reached them,” IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said in a statement. “Their bodies were found during combat in Rafah in an underground tunnel, approximately one kilometer from the tunnel from which we rescued Farhan Alkadi a few days ago.”
Israeli forces rescued Israeli captive Qaid Farhan Al-Qadi from a tunnel underneath Rafah on Tuesday.
Alongside Goldberg-Polin, IDF forces found the bodies of Master Sgt. Ori Danino, 25, Carmel Gat, 40, Alexander Lobanov, 32, Almog Sarusi, 27, and Eden Yerushalmi, 24. All six were taken hostage by Hamas on October 7 and were believed to be alive, according to The Wall Street Journal.
President Joe Biden released a statement expressing his “devastated and outraged” reaction to Goldberg-Polin’s death. Vice President Kamala Harris released a separate statement calling Hamas “an evil terrorist organization” with “even more American blood on its hands.”
“I strongly condemn Hamas’ continued brutality, and so must the entire world. From its massacre of 1,200 people to sexual violence, taking of hostages, and these murders, Hamas’ depravity is evident and horrifying. The threat Hamas poses to the people of Israel — and American citizens in Israel — must be eliminated and Hamas cannot control Gaza,” Harris said.
The Biden administration repeatedly pressured Israel to stay out of Rafah, the final stronghold of Hamas in Israel’s war to exterminate the terror group. Vice President Kamala Harris said during a March interview with ABC News that she and the president believed military action in Rafah to be a “huge mistake.”
“We have been clear in multiple conversations and in every way that any major military operation in Rafah would be a huge mistake,” Harris said.
“I have studied the maps. There’s nowhere for those folks to go,” she continued, referring to civilians moved into Rafah as the IDF fought Hamas in other parts of the enclave. “We’ve been very clear that it would be a mistake to move into Rafah with any type of military operation.”
The IDF offensive into Rafah began in May after Israel set up refugee camps and safe travel corridors for civilians to escape the city. Israeli forces have rescued a handful of hostages since, and while ceasefire negotiations have been ongoing, Israel has repeatedly rejected any deal that would foreclose Israel’s ability to destroy Hamas as an organization.
Elected Democrats have faced pressure from the left flank of their party to push for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war regardless of whether the terror group is left intact. Thousands of pro-Palestinian and pro-Hamas protesters marched on the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago last week to pressure Harris and others to take a tougher stance against Israel.
Goldberg-Polin was spotlighted at the DNC in an address to the conference given by his parents, who have been vocal proponents of a ceasefire deal to rescue hostages still captive in Gaza.
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