Orly Noy writes:

It has been 11 months since death arrived on our doorstep — first as an unwanted guest and now, it seems, as a permanent squatter who refuses to leave. Its presence is so intimate yet ethereal. The number of Palestinians that Israel has killed in its Holocaust in Gaza makes it difficult to digest the depth of the horror. How many images of dead Palestinian children can a person see before they all morph into one intangible expanse of darkness?

This feeling of numbness also applies to the Israeli victims, and especially the hostages. Perhaps for this reason, almost every Israeli, including those without a personal connection to them, has a particular hostage whose fate presses most painfully on their heart. Maybe it was Noa Argamani, the recently freed 26-year-old woman, whose kidnapping was watched on video around the world; or maybe it is the Bibas babies, whose orange hair has become a symbol of those held captive.

Or perhaps, like me, it was Hersh Goldberg-Polin, the 23-year-old young man who lost an arm during his kidnapping on October 7, and who, in April, we saw speaking to us from captivity in a video released by Hamas. His family home in Jerusalem is not far from mine. We liked the same soccer team. He was the same age as my eldest daughter, and they would frequent the same places in the city.

Although I never knew him personally, from the moment we received news on Saturday evening that the army had recovered the lifeless bodies of six more hostages, I couldn’t help but pray: “Please, just don’t let Hersh be one of them.” I woke up the next morning to discover my prayer hadn’t been answered.

When I walked to the bus stop near my home and saw the poster bearing Hersh’s face, I felt like someone was driving a stake through my heart. For nearly a year, he has been smiling at the passersby in our neighborhood. We’ve ridden the bus with Hersh, gone shopping with Hersh, and drunk coffee with Hersh. Now, Hersh is gone.

His parents, Rachel and John, spoke at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago just two weeks ago, pleading with anyone who would listen to push for a deal that would bring him home alive. When they stood there on the stage, their son was still alive.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu watched on, knowing that it was all in vain. While Hersh’s crushed parents knocked on every door, and Hersh was fighting for his life in captivity, Netanyahu had no intention of reaching a deal that would return the hostages to their families’ arms alive rather than in a coffin — choosing instead to cling on to power and continue spilling rivers of blood in Gaza. How did we agree to entrust our lives to the rule of this angel of death? [Continue reading…]