Twenty-three-year-old Hersh Goldberg-Paulin was kidnapped at a music festival when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, and has now appeared in a video released by the militant group.
The video shows that his left forearm is missing. Witnesses previously told how he was killed when he tried to throw a grenade out of a shelter where people were hiding.
He reportedly used his shirt to stop the bleeding before being kidnapped by Hamas. In the video, he criticizes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government, saying they should be "ashamed" of not securing the release of the hostages.
He claims that the Israelis killed "about 70 hostages" in the bombings, while the rest live "in an underground hell without water, food or sun."
In the video, Hersh is wearing a red shirt and sitting against a white wall. The video ends with a message to his own parents, telling them to "stay strong" and that he "loves them very much", reports the BBC.
Soon his parents also came forward. "We love you, stay strong, survive," they said. Jon Polin says he's happy to hear his son's voice for the first time in more than 200 days.
His mother and father called for more to be done to secure a new deal to release the hostages. They called on Israel, Hamas, the United States, Egypt and Qatar to "reach an agreement" so that "we can all be reunited with our loved ones and end the suffering in this region."
Weeks of indirect talks failed to produce an agreement, and Hamas rejected a proposal for a six-week truce in exchange for the release of 40 of the remaining 133 hostages. At least 30 hostages are believed to be dead.
Israel appears to be pushing ahead with plans for an offensive in Rafah, southern Gaza, despite warnings of potentially catastrophic humanitarian consequences for the 1,5 million displaced Palestinians who have taken refuge there.
Goldberg-Polin was attending the Supernova music festival on Oct. 7 when gunmen from Gaza, led by Hamas, stormed Israel's border fence, killing about 1.200 people and taking 253 hostages, according to Israeli figures. More than 360 people were killed at the festival.
More than 34.200 people have been killed in Gaza since October 7, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry. Israel is waging a military campaign to destroy Hamas and free the hostages.
In the agreement reached in November, Hamas released 105 hostages - mostly women and children - in exchange for a week-long ceasefire and about 240 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons.
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