Hersh Goldberg-Polin's mother speaks out after Hamas releases hostage video of her son

how did it feel as a mother looking at your child with an amputated arm it felt like he was four it felt like he was you know this is my little boy and he has suffered horrible emotional psychological physical trauma that continues and um it's a horrible uh agonizing miserable feeling and on the other hand he's talking he's moving he's alive he's breathing it must have been mixed emotions when you saw your son for the first time in over 200 days yesterday it was overwhelming and emotional and I wasn't even really listening to what he was saying I was just hearing his voice I haven't heard his voice in 6 months um I haven't seen him move I've seen photos that we look at you know it was also obviously very disturbing to see him he's clearly medically compromised and medically fragile and seeing his arm uh H and I are both left-handed and now he's not left-handed anymore and you know I go for walks um early in the morning and I say say it out loud as I'm walking I just it's like I'm a crazy person I just say it on repeat I love you stay strong survive I love you stay strong survive and I don't know how the universe works and I don't know if he hears it or if he feels it or if he knows it but I am ordering him to survive what is your demand then I think that the five parties who are involved with these negotiations they're all very smart people they can look around this entire region and see the horrendous suffering that is happening obviously I'm the mother of a hostage I look at my son my only son the person who turned me from a person into a mother I think that everyone has to decide to care about their people and love their people more than they hate their enemies because it's 6 months there is so much tragedy and so much suffering hundreds of thousands of innocent people in Gaza are suffering and you know of these innocent civilians who are in Gaza suffering I know one of them really well and his name is hirs proof of life right after 200 days Proof of Life yes huge so many people were so emotional because they really have not thought he was alive and I think as a mother and also what we had been told from intelligence is that people who they know that they're loved one the hostage of a family where they know that that loved one is no longer alive they do contact them so every day that we would hear nothing we kept saying okay God willing we are hopeful you have keep hope alive yes I've said for 202 days hope is mandatory period it's not an option it's not a choice it's mandatory or else it's it would be impossible to function what gives you the courage to keep going on you seem to have this incredible Inner Strength I'm sure it doesn't feel like that all the time this is a very Primal innate natural response when anyone in the animal Kingdom feels that their child is in danger I wake up every morning John wakes up every morning and we go we run to the end of the Earth we talk to anyone who will talk to us we turn over every stone we have no idea who is going to be the key that unlocks this and so we have to keep going there's no choice it's must have been a very difficult Passover oh seder was brutal brutal thank God we were with um our dearest friends and our close uh cousins there were a lot of Tears so it was brutal but beautiful because we sat there what is normally a celebration of Freedom we turned it into a crying out for freedom but there were just moments where I you know I couldn't hold it in or others couldn't hold it in and there was a lot of crying and I think that that was the right seder it was the authentic thing to be doing was to be crying crying out and begging for freedom of the remaining 133 hostages they are from 25 different nations there are Christians Jews Muslims Buddhists and Hindus the age range is 86 years there is a baby there there is an 86-year-old grandfather There It Is Enough let's be human let's figure it out and let's end this all of these people with a lot of power and influence can get it done it will be hard it will be a steep difficult compromise because that's what compromise is compromise is saying I am going to give up something dear for something I hold even more precious and that's not easy and it requires courage and it requires bravery and it requires creativity and it requires loving and caring about your people more than you hate the other and I would beg and beseech at this point that we do that

Channel: CBS News

Views: 45,633

Keywords: Israel, Gaza Strip, World

Id: RePf62RjaNs

Length: 6min 24sec (384 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 27 2024