Who are the Americans held hostage by Hamas?
Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23
Hersh Goldberg-Polin was born in Berkeley, California, before his family moved to Israel when he was 7.
As Madison Magazine reported Thursday, Goldberg-Polin attended the Nova Music Festival on Oct. 7 when Hamas attacked, killing over 300 people and taking others, including Goldberg-Polin, as hostages.
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The young man had his arm blown off by a grenade while attempting to hide from Hamas terrorists in a concrete field shelter. Others hiding in the shelter lost their lives, but the terrorists took Goldberg-Polin back to Gaza.
Jon Polin, the father of the 23-year-old hostage victim, also graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1993. The father told the magazine that he visited the site of the festival massacre and saw the shelter where his son attempted to hide.
"None of the hostages that have come out have given any indication of knowing Hersh or seeing Hersh," Polin said. An intelligence officer told him that this is not abnormal, as Hamas splits the hostages into groups and continuously moves them to new locations.
Both Jon and Rachel Goldberg, the hostage victim's mother, have publicly advocated for Hersh's release since Hamas took him captive. Rachel Goldberg was also one of the speakers at the March for Israel in Washington, D.C., last month.
Samantha Kamman is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter: @Samantha_Kamman
