Horrifying images emerged on Tuesday showing American-Israeli Hersh Goldberg-Polin looking dazed and shocked moments after Hamas terrorists blew off his arm.
The bone in Hersh’s shattered left limb was visibly protruding when he climbed into the bed of a truck under the gunpoint of Hamas terrorists shortly after they opened fire at the Tribe of Nova music festival in the southern Negev in the morning of October 7, according to the video posted by CNN’s Anderson Cooper.
Hersh’s arm was blown off when terrorists threw a grenade into a shelter where the festival-goer was taking shelter during the massacre.
The disturbing footage, which Cooper’s team filmed on the phone of an Israeli soldier who later arrived at the scene, showed several Hamas fighters dragging three other men into the truck with Hersh before returning to Gaza.
Cooper said he realized he had possible footage of Hersh’s capture while conducting a live remote interview with the 23-year-old’s parents, Rachel Goldberg and Jon Polin, last week.
Hersh Goldberg-Polin was taken hostage by Hamas two weeks ago. The family surrender video shows Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, with his arm torn off while sitting in the bed of a truck under the point of a Hamas gun.
He later sent the images to the parents, and they confirmed that the bleeding, stunned-looking young man was actually their missing son.
“As horrible as it is to be a father to your child at gunpoint, with one arm… the composure with which he walks on his own legs, climbing into the truck with his only weak hand, gave me a real dose of strength ”. Polin told Cooper.
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Goldberg said of his son’s calmness: “I think it was shock.”
The parents said they are determined to bring their son home, two weeks after Hamas took him and 200 other hostages captive.
Goldberg-Polin’s parents said her “composure” in the video has given them strength.CNN
They flew from Israel to Manhattan to go to the United Nations on Tuesday to press for action on behalf of their son and the other captives.
“I personally feel like we have to keep running to the ends of the Earth to save him,” Goldberg told Cooper last week. “And we have to try to believe that somehow he got treatment and…he’s alive and he’s there.”
But the parents, who lived in California and then Connecticut before moving their family to Israel more than 10 years ago, acknowledged that there are times when it is difficult to continue hoping for a good outcome.
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“There are moments in this universe that we live in now when you say, ‘Maybe he died in the truck, maybe he bled to death in that truck, maybe he died yesterday, maybe he died five minutes ago,'” Goldberg said.
Goldberg and Polin took Cooper during their interview to Hersh’s bedroom, which is reinforced with a steel door because it is also his home’s bomb shelter.
Hersh Goldberg-Polin (left) with his father, Jon Polin.AP
On Friday, during the Shabbat ritual, Goldberg stood on the family’s porch and shouted the blessing he would normally say over his son’s head, he recalled.
“I was shouting the blessing with my hands up,” she said through tears.
In the emotional interview, the couple also paid tribute to Hersh’s friend Aner Shapira, who died defending Hersh and 27 others hiding in the bomb shelter when Hamas descended.
“All witnesses said 11 grenades were thrown. [into the shelter]and Aner threw eight,” Goldberg explained.
Shapira’s body was later found with a grenade still in his hand, he said.
“He’s the real hero,” Goldberg said.
Rachel Goldberg said the family will “continue running to the ends of the Earth” to bring their son home.REUTERS
As the war between Israel and Hamas continues, Hersh’s family calls on international leaders to advocate for their son and other wounded hostages.
“The support is there, the empathy is there from the United States. But we want more, we want action,” Polin told Cooper.
“There are hostages from about 30 countries. Why haven’t we yet seen… world leaders shouting for help for the wounded?
Goldberg was recently on a 90-minute call between affected American families and President Joe Biden.
Hersh (below left) initially hid in a bomb shelter with 29 other people, his parents said. CNN
“It was a meeting of people who know what pain is,” he said.
Biden, 80, lost his first wife and daughter in a car accident in 1972. His son, Beau, died of brain cancer in 2015.
“There’s no manual for this,” Goldberg added of the family’s daily life as they wait for more news about Hersh’s condition.
“We are on the head of a pin and every direction you fall is a bad direction. “So we’re just trying to keep our balance on the head of the pin.”
Hersh’s parents described him as “a curious child” with a passion for travel that began at a young age.
At the time he was taken hostage, Hersh was counting down to a long-awaited trip to India scheduled for December 27.
Now, Goldberg said, she and the rest of Hersh’s family are hopeful that he will return to them, “and go on that journey, with one hand.”
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Source: vtt.edu.vn