Emhoff ‘gutted’ over Hersh Goldberg-Polin’s killing, hails hostage’s parents’ strength
US second gentleman says American-Israeli’s death ‘feels personal’ to him and VP Harris, vows administration ‘working around the clock’ for a hostage-ceasefire deal
US Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff hailed the strength of Hersh Goldberg-Polin’s parents at a Washington vigil on Tuesday memorializing the US-American and the five other hostages who were killed by Hamas last week, and said he was “gutted” by the murders.
“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about Hersh and his parents, or about the five others and their families.” He added: “This is hard. I feel raw. I’m gutted.”
At the event, which was organized by local and national Jewish groups and held at the Adas Israel synagogue, Emhoff recalled the conversation he and Vice President Kamala Harris had with Jon and Rachel Goldberg-Polin, the slain hostage’s parents, after “their souls were torn apart, just like the garments we tear in mourning.”
“They were comforting us. They were asking about the latest in the negotiations,” he shared. “They were asking how we can use this terrible moment to make progress. They told the vice president that they don’t want Hersh’s death to be in vain.”
“At Hersh’s funeral yesterday, they still wore the tape marking the number of days the hostages have been in captivity: 332. I saw that and thought, ‘The count was never about their son alone,’” he continued.
“Jon and Rachel’s hearts have room to hold everyone. They are not giving up, and neither can we,” Emhoff added, saying the Biden administration is working “around the clock to get a hostage-and-ceasefire deal done.”
“How you feel right now is how I feel,” Emhoff told the audience.
“And how we all feel is something Kamala hears directly from me.” He added, “Hersh’s loss feels personal to the two of us. We’re both grieving.”
“I share what I’m feeling with the vice president – as my partner, as my wife. She knows. She gets it. She cares. She’s committed,” he said.
Harris, in addition to serving as vice president, is the Democratic nominee for president in November’s US general election.
The Israeli military recovered Goldberg-Polin’s body on Saturday along with those of five other hostages, with autopsies revealing the six had been executed by gunshot shortly before they were found by Israeli troops.
The six Israelis had survived almost eleven months in captivity, following their abduction from Israel during Hamas’s October 7 attack last year, when thousands of terrorists invaded southern Israel from the Gaza Strip, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, and starting the ongoing war.
Efforts to reach an agreement between Israel and Hamas for the release of the remaining hostages, in exchange for a cessation of fighting and the release of Palestinian security prisoners, have been conducted on and off since a partial hostage release and weeklong truce in November.
A negotiating effort last month, based on a framework outlined by US President Joe Biden in late May to which both sides said they agreed, failed to seal a deal, reportedly snagging in part on Israel’s insistence on maintaining a military presence along the Gaza-Egypt border to prevent arms smuggling into the enclave.
Goldberg-Polin and two of the other hostages executed last week — Carmel Gat and Eden Yerushalmi — were set to be among the first group of captives released if a deal went through.
In the wake of their bodies’ recovery, some hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets, and the Histadrut labor federation called a one-day general strike, urging the state to do more to secure the hostages’ release.
It is believed that 97 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 33 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Hamas released 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released before that. Eight hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 37 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to escape their captors.
Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of two IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
