US President Joe Biden mentioned Saturday that the physique of Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin was amongst six recovered in Gaza by Israeli forces.
“Earlier at the moment, in a tunnel below the town of Rafah, Israeli forces recovered six our bodies of hostages held by Hamas,” Biden mentioned in a press release.
“We’ve got now confirmed that one of many hostages… was an American citizen, Hersh Goldberg-Polin,” the president mentioned, calling his dying “as tragic as it’s reprehensible.”
The 23-year-old was amongst 251 hostages seized through the October 7 assault on southern Israel by Palestinian militants.
Round 100 hostages stay in captivity, dozens of whom the Israeli army says are useless.
“Make no mistake, Hamas leaders can pay for these crimes,” Biden vowed.
“And we’ll preserve working across the clock for a deal to safe the discharge of the remaining hostages,” he added.
The mother and father of Goldberg-Polin, who was kidnapped from the Supernova music pageant, addressed delegates on the Democratic Nationwide Conference in Chicago final month.
Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic standard-bearer within the November election, pledged in a press release that Goldberg-Polin’s household “should not alone… as they mourn this horrible loss.”
“Hamas is an evil terrorist group,” mentioned Harris. “With these murders, Hamas has much more American blood on its arms.”
“The risk Hamas poses… should be eradicated and Hamas can’t management Gaza,” she mentioned, including that “the Palestinian folks too have suffered below Hamas’ rule for almost 20 years.”
On Thursday, Goldberg-Polin’s mother and father joined different family of hostages rallying close to the Gaza border.
“Hersh! It is Mother… I really like you, keep robust, survive,” Rachel Goldberg-Polin shouted right into a microphone.
Her son had hidden in a bomb shelter with different folks on October 7 however it was surrounded by gunmen, who attacked it with grenades.
A Hamas video from the day confirmed him being loaded onto a pick-up truck with a mangled left arm.
He appeared in a proof-of-life video launched by Hamas on April 24 wherein he mentioned the captives had been residing “in hell”. His left arm had been amputated under the elbow.
Hamas’s October 7 assault resulted within the deaths of 1,199 folks, largely civilians, in accordance with an AFP tally primarily based on Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory army marketing campaign has killed no less than 40,691 folks in Gaza, in accordance with the territory’s well being ministry. The UN rights workplace says many of the useless are ladies and youngsters.
