- Families and survivors await return, healing
- Rachel marks days since son’s abduction
- Hopes for hostages’ release during Ramadan fade
Rachel Goldberg-Polin has adopted a new timetable: days of absence and agony, as opposed to weeks or months.
Upon awakening each morning, she proceeds to affix a number written on a piece of tape to one of her articles of apparel. It has been that many days since her son Hersh was allegedly stolen by Hamas and held hostage.
At our Jerusalem gathering, that number will be 155.
She checked her phone on the morning of October 7 and discovered two messages from Hersh. One of them declared, “I love you.” The following instant, the second message was sent with the apology phrase “I’m sorry.” Her call went unanswered.
“It continued to ring,” she reports.
“I composed the following: ‘Are you okay? Please inform me whether you are in good health. Each of those communications was never observed. I contracted my throat and curled my midriff inward. “I did not doubt that something terrible would occur, and I knew he was as well.”
Hersh became entangled in the devastation that Hamas instigated at the Supernova music festival. He sought sanctuary within a crowded blast shelter. Hamas militants were hand-grenading from the exterior.
The 23-year-old’s final known photograph appears in a Hamas video. As he is loaded onto a pickup vehicle, gunmen surround him. His left limb has been severed in the explosion.
The majority of the 1,200 Israeli casualties in the Hamas attacks were civilians. Since then, Israel has relentlessly bombarded Gaza, resulting in the deaths of over 31,000 people, according to Hamas-controlled territory officials. There, 70% of the deceased are females and infants.
Rachel’s struggle during the raging conflict in Gaza is to retrieve her son and the remaining detainees.
Thirty-one captives remain in Gaza as a result of the October 7 attacks, including Hersh. Israel estimates that thirty of them have already perished.
She informs me, “Every morning I resolve to transform myself into a human in order to awaken and attempt to rescue Hersh and the other hostages that remain.” “I wish I could sob uncontrollably on the floor, but that would be of no assistance to them.”
Rachel, who has three children, is petite and frail yet possesses tremendous strength. We convene at the campaign headquarters of her family, a venture capital firm’s office that a mutual acquaintance lent us. Currently, she is fully occupied with campaigning. She has been absent from work since the day the assaults occurred. Neither of them is married to Jon.
After five months, however, domestic and international attention is beginning to wane regarding the hostages. They are forced to fight hard to maintain their relatives’ public profile.
When Hersh is queried, a grin appears on her face. “That’s my favourite subject – my children,” she elaborates. “Hersh is a relaxed, optimistic soccer enthusiast. Since early childhood, he has had an extraordinary time at music festivals and a deep obsession with travel and geography.
Her American-Israeli dual-citizen son was preparing to embark on a two-year circumnavigational journey. His ticket was purchased in advance. The date of departure was December 27.
Anticipated was an agreement that would secure the hostages’ release before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners and a ceasefire lasting approximately forty days. A desolate Ramadan has arrived, devoid of any development. However, agreement-related discussions will recommence in Doha within the next day.
Rachel states that she is perpetually anxious, fearful, and unsure: “Are you familiar with the proverb, ‘Do not count your chickens before they hatch?'” “I believe that before you can count your hostages, you should be hugging them.”
Hope, however, “is mandatory,” she asserts.
I am convinced, and I must continue to be convinced, that he will return to us.
Despite her intense suffering, she readily recognises the suffering endured by families in Gaza.
She insists the anguish must cease, not just for Israelis.
“There are thousands and thousands of innocent civilians in Gaza who are suffering,” according to her. “So much suffering exists in the world.” And I would adore it if all of our leaders would declare, “We are determined to take the necessary actions to put an end to the suffering of ordinary people.”
Not only the hostage families, according to experts, are enduring an agonising delay. Additionally, 105 captives were liberated in November as a result of a week-long ceasefire; others remained captive.
“Many of them insist that they cannot even begin grieving or healing until their loved ones return,” says Professor Ofrit Shapira-Berman, an expert in complex trauma treatment and a seasoned psychoanalyst.
“Many continue to have family in Gaza,” she informs us. “Others have developed friendships while in captivity.” An ensemble is awaiting. That is one similarity that they share. The occurrence of their trauma is being postponed.
Professor Shapira-Berman had already organised a network of volunteer physicians and mental health professionals to assist survivors by the wee hours of October 7. Additionally, they have been rehabilitating returned hostages since November.
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Within an office replete with books in a suburban locality of Tel Aviv, she laboriously recounts the ordeals the captives were forced to endure. She claims that all were subjected to psychological abuse, but not all endured physical abuse.
“Some of them, including the children, were beaten,” she states. Everyone was given a highly meagre amount of food, to the point of near starvation, a negligible amount of water and occasionally contaminated water. They had been egged. They were otherwise compliant with the anaesthetic ketamine. “The entire variety was touched without consent,” she says, her voice waning.
Israel is especially concerned about the women in custody, and with good reason, she explains.
Evidentiary support and testimonies surfaced indicating that particular women are, as she informs us, “not only have been but continue to be sexually abused.”
