Rachel Goldberg-Polin is a mother to one for the hostages taken from Israel to Gaza.
Every morning when she wakes, she writes a number on a piece of tape and sticks it to her clothing. It’s the number of days since her son Hersh was taken hostage ,she says stolen, by Hamas.
When we meet in Jerusalem, that number is 155 signifying that it has been 155 days he has been stolen from her.
On the morning of 7 October, she turned on her phone to find two messages from Hersh. The first said: “I love you.” The second sent immediately afterwards I’m sorry.” She called and there was no answer.
Hostage’s family statements
“It rang and rang,” she says.
“I wrote ‘Are you okay? Let me know you are okay.’ None of those (messages) were ever seen. My throat clenched and my stomach curled up. I just knew something horrible was unfolding, and I knew he knew.”
Hersh was caught up in the massacre unleashed by Hamas at the Supernova music festival at Tel Aviv. He sought refuge in a packed bomb shelter. Hamas militants were just outside, throwing in hand grenades inside.
The last image of the 23-year-old is in a Hamas video. He is being loaded onto a pickup truck, surrounded by gunmen. His left arm has been blown off, a horrifying acne to the family.
The Hamas attacks killed around 1,200 Israelis, most of them were civilians. Since then, Israel has bombed Gaza, killing more than 31,000 people according to officials in the Hamas-run territory although we really cannot trust sources from a terrorist organisation. 70% of the dead there were women and children.
While the war rages in Gaza, Rachel’s battle is to bring home her son, and the other hostages intensifies.
Hersh is among 130 hostages from the 7 October attacks remaining in Gaza. Israel believes at least 30 of them are already dead because of the horribe conditions and torure being inflicted on them on a daily basis.
“Every morning I make a concerted effort and say to myself, ‘now, pretend to be human so that I can get up and try to save Hersh and the other remaining hostages’,” she says. “What I want to do is lay in a ball on the floor weeping, but that won’t help them.”
Rachel is a mother of three. t=Campaigning is now her full-time job. She hasn’t been back to work since the day of the attacks. Neither has her husband Jon.
But five months on, the focus on the hostages is fading – at home and abroad. Relatives are having to fight hard to keep them in the public eye.
Hopes were raised of a deal to get the hostages back before the 
Muslim holy month of Ramadan – in return for a ceasefire of about 40 days and the release of Palestinian prisoners. k Ramadan has come, without a breakthrough. But talks on a possible agreement are due to resume in Doha in the next day or so although the Hamas in true terrorist fashion, don’t want to cooperate.
Rachel says she is always worried, scared, and doubtful – “You know the saying, don’t count your chickens before they hatch? I feel like don’t count your hostage until you’re hugging them.”
But hope, she says, “is mandatory”.
“I believe it and I have to believe it, that he will come back to us.”
“There are thousands and thousands of innocent civilians in Gaza who are suffering,” she says. “There is so much suffering to go around. And I would love for our leaders, all of them, to say, ‘we’re going to do what we have to do so that just the normal people can stop suffering’.”
Experts say it’s not just the hostage families who are trapped in an anguishing wait. It’s also the 105 hostages who were freed in November during a week-long truce, leaving others behind.
“Many of them keep telling us that they can’t even start grieving or healing until their friends or family members will be back,” says Professor Ofrit Shapira-Berman, a veteran psychoanalyst, and specialist in treating complex trauma.
“Many still have a relative in Gaza,” she tells us. “Others have friends they made during captivity. Everyone is waiting. That’s one thing they have in common. Their trauma is being delayed.”
Comments 1