- Written by Ora Guerin
- BBC News, Tel Aviv
image source, Handouts to families
Hirsch Goldberg-Pollin stands next to his mother, Rachel.Hersh last appeared in a Hamas video after the October 7 attack.
Rachel Goldberg-Pollin is now living by a new calendar. Not weeks or months, but days of absence and pain.
Every morning when she wakes up, she writes numbers on tape and sticks them on her clothes. This is the number of days since her son Harsh was taken hostage by Hamas. She says it was stolen.
When we meet in Jerusalem, the number will be 155.
On the morning of October 7, she turned on her phone and found two messages from Harsh. The first person said, “I love you.” A second email sent shortly after said, “I’m sorry.” She called, but she got no answer.
“It kept ringing,” she says.
“I wrote, ‘Are you okay? Please let me know you’re okay.’ I couldn’t see any of them (messages). My throat tightened and my stomach knotted. I just felt like something was scary. I just knew it was happening, and I knew he knew.”
Hirsch was caught up in the massacre perpetrated by Hamas at the Supernova music festival. He took refuge in a crowded air raid shelter. Hamas militants were right outside, throwing grenades.
The 23-year-old was last seen in a Hamas video. He is loaded into a pickup truck surrounded by armed men. His left arm was blown off.
The Hamas attack killed about 1,200 Israelis, most of them civilians. Since then, Israel has relentlessly bombed Gaza, killing more than 31,000 people, according to officials in the Hamas-controlled area. 70% of the dead are women and children.
As war rages on in Gaza, Rachel’s fight is to get her son and other hostages home.
Hirsch is among 130 hostages left in Gaza after the October 7 attack. Israel believes at least 30 of them are already dead.
“Every morning, I try very hard and say to myself, ‘Okay, let’s pretend to be human, get up and save Harsh and the rest of the hostages,'” she says. “All I want to do is curl up on the floor and cry, but that doesn’t help them.”
Rachel – a mother of three – is small and skinny, but she’s powerful. We met at her family’s campaign headquarters, a venture capital firm’s office rented by a friend of hers. Campaigning is now her full-time job. She has not returned to her job since the day of the attack. Her husband John is also missing.
Video: Rachel Goldberg-Pollin talks about Hirsch’s kidnapping
However, five months have passed, and attention to the hostages has begun to wane both domestically and internationally. Relatives must fight hard to keep them out of the public eye.
When I ask about Harsh, a smile appears on her face. “It’s my favorite subject, my children,” she says. “Harsh is a fun, laid-back soccer fan. He’s obsessed with music festivals and has been obsessed with geography and travel since childhood.”
Her son, a dual citizen of the United States and Israel, was planning to embark on a one- to two-year trip around the world. His ticket had already been purchased. The departure date was December 27th.
Hopes were high that a deal could be reached to take back the hostages before the Islamic holy month of Ramadan in exchange for a ceasefire of about 40 days and the release of Palestinian prisoners. A dark Ramadan has arrived with no solution in sight. However, talks on a possible deal are expected to resume in Doha in the next day or so.
Rachel says she is always worried, scared, and suspicious. “You know the saying, don’t count your chickens before they hatch? I feel like you shouldn’t count your hostages until you’ve held them.”
But hope is “essential,” she says.
“I believe, and I have to believe, that he will come back.”
In the midst of her suffering, she was quick to acknowledge the pain of families in Gaza.
She said this suffering must end, and not just for Israelis.
“Thousands of innocent civilians are suffering in Gaza,” she says. “Too much suffering continues, and I want to say to all of our leaders, ‘We’re going to do what we have to do so that ordinary people can stop suffering.’ I would like you to do that.”
Experts say hostages’ families are not the only ones forced into an agonizing wait. They are also among the 105 hostages released during a week-long ceasefire in November, leaving behind others.
“Many of them continue to tell us that they can’t begin to grieve or heal until their friends and family return,” says Ofrit Shapira, a veteran psychoanalyst and expert in complex trauma treatment. Professor Berman says:
“Many people still have relatives in Gaza,” she says. “Some people have friends they made during their incarceration. They’re all waiting. That’s one of the things they have in common. Their trauma is delayed.”
On the morning of October 7, Professor Shapira Berman had already mobilized a volunteer network of doctors and mental health professionals to provide support to survivors. Since November, she has also been treating repatriated hostages.
In her book-filled office on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, she recounts to us the conditions the hostages endured. She said all had suffered psychological abuse, but not all had been physically abused.
“Some of them were beaten, including children. All they were given was very little food, very little water, sometimes dirty water, almost to the point of starvation. “They forced me to take ketamine (used for anesthesia) and touched me in all kinds of ways without my consent,” she says, her voice trailing off.
There is a particular concern for women in detention in Israel, and for good reason, she says.
“What has come to light is very clear evidence and testimony that some women have been sexually abused. They have not been sexually abused, but they are still being sexually abused,” she said.
She wonders what the future holds for those who are freed. At least some of them “will learn to love and trust someone,” she says, but that may take years.
She warns that healing will be even more difficult for those who have been physically abused, or who return to find their loved ones brutally murdered and their homes destroyed.
For those remaining in Gaza, five months on, there is far less certainty of recovery, even if they are eventually freed, she says. At best, it will take years.
If they are not released, what does that mean for the returning hostages?
“It seems your heart is forever shattered,” Professor Shapira Berman replies. “So if it’s already broken, it’s going to be broken again. It’s beyond my imagination that there won’t be a ceasefire. Even if the hostages come back, this is a modern-day holocaust.”
Itai Svirsky’s family photo shows a dark-haired man with smiling eyes and full cheeks.
In one photo, the 38-year-old can be seen strumming a guitar. In another photo, he is sitting on a bench with his arm around his grandmother Aviva.
A propaganda video released by Hamas in January shows a very different Itai, with sunken cheeks, blurred eyes and a deep voice.
image source, Handouts to families
The Israeli military said Itai Svirski was killed by Hamas guards.Hamas claims he was killed in an airstrike.
He won’t come home. All his family wants is to get his body back from Gaza for burial.
A military investigation said Itai was killed by his bodyguards after a nearby Israeli Defense Force airstrike.
“Itai was executed two days later by the terrorists who were guarding him,” said his cousin Nama Weinberg.
“We know he shot him. What would make that guy shoot him 99 days later? It’s devastating. The disappointment is unimaginable.”
The military denies Hamas’ claims that Svirski was killed in the airstrike, but acknowledges there may have been other hostages held with him.
We first met Naama last November when she was campaigning for Itai’s release, but she still had hope. Despite her loss, she continues to campaign for the other hostages, although she is still grieving.
Itai’s cousin Nama says she is disappointed in Israel’s response to the hostage crisis.
We caught up with her at the recent march by hostage families from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
“I’m angry and sad because Itai isn’t coming back,” she says. “They (the government) did not do anything they could have done and they are not doing anything they can do now. Obviously Hamas is not the best party to negotiate with, but we want them back and we want them back alive. I want to.”
Naama is heartbroken to have witnessed what Itai went through in her final months: the October 7 murder of her mother, peace activist Orit, and her subsequent imprisonment. And she is troubled by the sense that Israel is becoming accustomed to hostage situations.
“I’m very worried,” she tells me. “I’m worried about the human nature of accepting the situation. I’m disappointed in Israeli society. I’m disappointed in the whole world for keeping quiet and letting this happen.”
Then she left us and rejoined the people marching on the road to Jerusalem.
A few days later, relatives gathered on the road at dusk, forming a tight circle of loss, and traffic came to a halt outside the Israeli Ministry of Defense in Tel Aviv.
Most hold posters with photos of their sons, daughters or parents they have not seen or held since October 7, when Hamas dragged them into Gaza.
This is followed by a dark counting (Hebrew): “1, 2, 3.” This counts the number of days a loved one is gone.
The number is currently 163 (as of March 17).
Every word of the shouters sounds like a rebuke directed at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The signboard read, “Refusal of deal = hostage death penalty.”
Among the protesters, he meets Amit Shem Tov, who wants his brother Omer back. He was removed from the music festival just like Hersh Goldberg-Pollin.
Amit Shem Tov’s brother Omer is one of the hostages still believed to be in Gaza.
“He’s beautiful on the outside, but he’s even more beautiful on the inside,” says Amit, smiling at his brother’s bearded face on a nearby poster. “With such a personality, I have too many friends, always joke, always laugh”, always love to dance, love to live life. That’s him. ”
Then, after the count is finished, dozens of protesters clear the road and traffic moves on, something the families of the hostages cannot do.
“For us, it’s still October 7,” says Amit.
