'Stay Strong, Survive': Gaza Hostage's Parents Speak Directly To Captive Son In DNC Speech

CHICAGO — In an address that brought some attendees of the Democratic National Convention to tears, the parents of one of the eight American citizens held hostage in Gaza addressed the gathering — and their absent son — on Wednesday evening.

Rachel Goldberg-Polin, the mother of 23-year-old Hersh Goldberg-Polin, closed out her remarks with an appeal not to negotiators or convention-goers but to her beleaguered son.

“Hersh, if you can hear us, we love you,” Goldberg-Polin said. “Stay strong. Survive.”

Jon Polin, Hersh Goldberg-Polin’s father, also addressed U.S. leaders. “The time is now,” he said, for an agreement to secure the release of the captives and “stop the despair in Gaza.”

The pair were speaking as part of an effort to keep attention on the hostages still being held in Gaza by Hamas, the Palestinian militant group whose Oct. 7 attack on Israel sparked the latest episode of outright fighting in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Of those the group captured in the shocking attack, some 109 are still in captivity; some are dead.

The hostages include Christians, Jews, Muslims and Buddhists, and represent 23 different nationalities, Polin noted, calling them all “treasured human beings.”

The U.S., along with Qatar and Egypt, is serving as a mediator in negotiations between Hamas and the Israeli government for a deal that would free the captives and end Israel’s devastating months-long offensive in Gaza. Last year, a brief bargain between the two sides led to more than 80 women and children being freed. The hostages still being held include a 1-year-old.

The talks falteredthis week, despite the Biden administration promising just days ago that they were, per a senior administration official on Friday,