TEL AVIV —
A wave of grief and fury washed over Israel Sunday, with tens of thousands of people taking to the streets to march and mourn after Israeli authorities said six hostages, including a 23-year-old California-born Israeli American, had been killed days earlier by their captors after enduring nearly 11 months of Hamas captivity.
Israeli forensic officials said autopsies showed that all six — four men and two women, most of them music festival-goers in their 20s — died Thursday or Friday from multiple gunshots fired at close range. The bodies were recovered Saturday from a dank tunnel beneath the southern Gaza city of Rafah, and the army confirmed their identities on Sunday.
The sole U.S. citizen among the six was Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a Berkeley native whose parents had mounted a fiercely determined international campaign for his release.
The Israeli military said its preliminary assessment was that all six were killed “shortly” before the arrival of troops who hoped to pluck them to safety. Army spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari described them as having been “cruelly murdered.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, facing a wave of anger from compatriots, again blamed Hamas for the failure to achieve an accord that could have secured their release.
“Whoever murders hostages does not want a deal,” the Israeli leader said in a prerecorded statement issued hours after Israelis awakened to the grim news of the latest deaths.
Hamas, in a statement, blamed Israel and the United States.
“The occupation and its supporters, headed by the United States and its President Biden, bear the first and last responsibility for killing prisoners, as they bear responsibility for killing our people and the war of extermination against them,” the group said.
In addition to Goldberg-Polin, the other dead hostages were identified by the Israeli military as Ori Danino, 25; Eden Yerushalmi, 24; Almog Sarusi, 27; and Alexander Lobanov, 33 — also seized from a desert music festival — and Carmel Gat, 40, who was abducted from Kibbutz Beeri nearby.
Biden said in a statement that he was “devastated and outraged” by the deaths. The White House said later the president had spoken to the Goldberg-Polin family.
Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, also condemned the killings.
“With these murders, Hamas has even more American blood on its hands,” she wrote on X. “I strongly condemn Hamas’ continued brutality, and so must the entire world.”
The Los Angeles Times interviewed Goldberg-Polin’s parents, Rachel and Jon, in Jerusalem three days after the Oct. 7 attack, as they were only beginning to process the shock of his capture. At the time, they expressed hopes of securing his release.
Since then, the two, who immigrated to Israel when Hersh was 8, helped spearhead a worldwide campaign that included meetings with Biden, Pope Francis and many others. Last month, they addressed the Democratic National Convention, calling for the hostages’ freedom and an end to civilian suffering in Gaza.
An undated photo of Hersh Goldberg-Polin.
(Polin-Goldberg family)
For many Israelis, the circumstances of the killings — that the six were apparently so close to possible rescue after suffering months of captivity, and that a deal to free them had recently seemed within reach — marked one of the bleakest junctures of a catastrophic war that Gaza health officials say has killed nearly 41,000 Palestinians.
The conflict erupted after Hamas-led Palestinian militants stormed out of Gaza on Oct. 7 of last year, killing about 1,200 people in southern Israel.
Some 250 people — men, women and children — were taken hostage that day. About half were freed in a hostage-prisoner swap last year; a handful were rescued, while others died or were killed in captivity. Three were accidentally slain by Israeli troops in Gaza last year after escaping their captors.
Of about 100 hostages still missing in Gaza, Israeli officials have said around one-third are thought to be dead. Of the eight Americans who were abducted, four, including Goldberg-Polin, are now confirmed dead.
Word of the latest deaths triggered some of the largest and most emotional demonstrations yet by hostage families and their supporters, who turned out en masse across the country on Sunday for vigils and rallies. Many of those taking part excoriated Netanyahu for prioritizing a total defeat of Hamas over a deal to bring the hostages home.
“Hamas killed them, but Bibi also had the responsibility, and didn’t shoulder it,” said Yuval Sheleg, a 27-year-old student, referring to the prime minister by his nickname as she prepared to join in a candlelight vigil at a downtown Tel Aviv square.
A 25-year-old marcher named Jonathan Shoval, who carried a handmade cardboard placard emblazoned with a blood-red handprint, said Netanyahu had “missed the opportunity” to strike a deal.
“The most painful thing was that those people were young and alive, and could have come back to Israel, back to their homes,” he said.
Other demonstrators carried six mock coffins through the streets. Protesters blocked the main entrance to Jerusalem and set tires ablaze on a Tel Aviv highway, and Israel’s biggest labor federation called for a general strike on Monday.
Press commentary aimed at the prime minister was among the most scathing since the start of the war.
“Israeli Hostages Die So Netanyahu Can Keep His Coalition Alive” was the headline on an opinion piece in the Haaretz newspaper by prominent military correspondent Amos Harel, referring to the prime minister’s hard-right government.
While his key political allies support continuing an all-out war, some of Netanyahu’s most senior associates in the country’s security establishment took thinly veiled shots at him.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant called Sunday for a reversal of a Cabinet decision last week — which he had reportedly opposed — to keep Israel’s forces in a corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border. Netanyahu’s insistence on maintaining military control of the corridor was a key sticking point in negotiations.
The prime minister’s main political foes, including opposition leader Yair Lapid, accused him of failing to make freeing the hostages a priority. “Netanyahu and the cabinet of death decided not to save them,” Lapid said in a video statement.
Netanyahu did not issue a statement for hours after the army’s announcement confirming the identities of the dead hostages, and when he did, it was a pretaped video. Some of the relatives of the dead openly scorned him, with the family of Carmel Gat saying they had refused to speak with him.
Goldberg-Polin and four of the other five were taken captive at an all-night rave in the desert just outside Gaza, where attackers hunted, killed and captured hundreds of attendees who made frantic calls to family and the army, pleading for rescue.
The circumstances of Goldberg-Polin’s capture were particularly harrowing: his left arm was blown off below the elbow by a grenade while he and a group tried to find haven in a roadside bomb shelter. In April, a video issued by Hamas had shown him injured, but alive.
In keeping with Jewish tradition, the round of funerals began swiftly. In the central Israeli city of Raanana, 27-year-old Almog Sarusi was buried, with hundreds in attendance.
“How we hoped and prayed we’d get to see you,” his mother Nira said in a eulogy. “You were sacrificed on the altar of ‘destroying Hamas.’”
Goldberg-Polin’s funeral was to take place Monday in Jerusalem, his family said.
Staff correspondent Nabih Bulos in Beirut contributed to this report.
