The mother of a 23-year-old American among the 132 hostages who remain held by Hamas militants said Sunday that the U.S. should not be considered a \u2018neutral negotiator\u2019 and \u2018was also a victim\u2019 on Oct. 7.<\/p>\n
On Mother\u2019s Day, Rachel Goldberg-Polin, mother of 23-year-old Hersh Goldberg-Polin, said during an appearance on \u2018Fox News Sunday\u2019 that \u2018it\u2019s clear not enough is being done because we still have 132 cherished souls who are being held captive for 219 days, and within that cohort of 132 souls, there are the American 8.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fox News correspondent Benjamin Hall asked Goldberg-Polin whether she wanted to see ceasefire talks continue.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018I think we really have to be creative and inciteful and figure out a way forward. Both sides really have to figure out a way forward, and calling for a timeout certainly will give some time for people to start to think straight again,\u2019 Goldberg-Polin said in response. \u2018I think really what gets lost in this is America should not be considered sort of this neutral negotiator. America was also a victim on Oct. 7. Forty-five Americans were killed on Oct. 7. Twelve were taken into captivity, and eight are still being held hostage.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018And I certainly want all the suffering in the region, and there\u2019s so much suffering to go around, I mean there\u2019s no competition here. There are hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in Gaza who are suffering, and there are also 132 innocent civilians in Gaza who were dragged there on Oct. 7 who are suffering. I think people have trouble holding those two truths, and that does an injustice to everyone involved,\u2019 she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Goldberg-Polin said she did not believe most Americans know that American innocent civilians still remain held captive in Gaza, as do people from other nationalities around the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018There are a lot of people in that hostage cohort that we don\u2019t hear about,\u2019 she said. \u2018When we hear a lot of noise about the hostages being held you very rarely hear about the Muslim Arabs who are hostage, you very rarely hear about the Thai Buddhists who are hostage, you very rarely hear about the Black Christian Africans who are being held hostage. There\u2019s Nepalese. There are Mexicans, there are Argentinians, there are Germans, and somehow there has been an attempt to make this group of people a monolithic, homogenous group.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018I find it curious and suspicious that for whatever reason, that has not been publicly saturating the news,\u2019 Goldberg-Polin added.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018Do you think that an Israeli invasion into Rafah \u2013 do you think that perhaps that would put your son, put all these other hostages, their lives in danger? Hall also asked.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018I\u2019m not a military strategist,\u2019 Goldberg-Polin responded. \u2018I am a mother who is horribly, miserably worried about her only son who has been in an active war zone for 219 days, along with 131 other people.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
She noted how the oldest remaining hostage is Shlomo Mansour an 86-year-old grandfather, while the youngest is Kfir Bibas, a one-and-a-half-year-old child.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018We have daughters, sons, sisters, brothers, spouses, fathers, mothers, grandparents, and we are all horribly worried about our loved ones being in harm\u2019s way,\u2019 she added.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Oct. 7 attack killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took another 250 hostage. Militants still hold about 100 captives and the remains of more than 30. Internationally mediated talks over a cease-fire and hostage release appear to be at a standstill.<\/p>\n
Israeli forces pushed deeper into Gaza\u2019s southern city of Rafah on Sunday and battled Hamas in parts of the devastated north that the military said it had cleared months ago but where militants have regrouped, the Associated Press reported. Warnings continued against the growing offensive in Rafah, considered the last refuge in Gaza for more than a million civilians as well as Hamas\u2019 last stronghold.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Some 300,000 people have fled Rafah following evacuation orders from Israel, which says it must invade to dismantle Hamas and return scores of hostages taken in the Oct. 7 attack against Israel that sparked the war.\u00a0<\/p>\n
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated opposition to a major military assault on Rafah, telling CBS that Israel would \u2018be left holding the bag on an enduring insurgency\u2019 without an exit from Gaza and postwar governance plan.<\/p>\n
The Associated Press contributed to this report.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n
The mother of a 23-year-old American among the 132 hostages who remain held by Hamas militants said Sunday that the U.S. should not be considered a \u2018neutral negotiator\u2019 and \u2018was also a victim\u2019 on Oct. 7. On Mother\u2019s Day, Rachel Goldberg-Polin, mother of 23-year-old Hersh Goldberg-Polin, said during an appearance on \u2018Fox News Sunday\u2019 that <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":19048,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}