‘An Excruciating Form of Suffering’: Mom of US Hostage Killed by Hamas Shares Heartbreaking Story on 60 Minutes

The mother of Hersh Goldberg-Polin — an American citizen who was kidnapped by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023 in Israel and later murdered — discussed the agony she and her family have been put through during a heartbreaking interview on 60 Minutes on Sunday.

Rachel Goldberg-Polin told her story to correspondent Anderson Cooper.

“To know that your child is being tortured, tormented, starved, abused… he’s maimed. And that’s an excruciating form of suffering,” Goldberg-Polin said.

“And then what’s so fascinating to me is that when they came to tell us that Hersh had been executed, then I realized that those 330 days had been the good part, because he was alive,” she continued.”And now I’m in this place and this is the rest of my life. How do I walk through this place without a piece of me here?”

Her son was taken back to Gaza along with hundreds of other hostages on 10/7, following the Hamas terror attack on the Nova Music Festival. Approximately 1,200 people were killed in the larger Hamas attack in Israel. Hersch Goldberg-Polin had his left arm blown off while attempting to hide with others in a bunker, where his friend Aner Elyakim Shapira was killed after heroically throwing 10 grenades back at the terrorists.

Hersh Goldberg-Polin was born in the U.S. in 2000 and moved to Israel with his family in 2008.

Cooper choked up during the interview while recounting how he had been the one to tell Rachel Goldberg-Polin and her husband Jonathan Polin in 2023 that he had seen footage of their son being forced into a pickup truck and taken back to Gaza; he said he saw video of Hersch Goldberg-Polin — with the bloody bones of his left arm sticking out — about a week after the attack.

“To this day, I am sorry that that is how you found out,” Cooper told her.

“But we were so thankful,” Goldberg-Polin said. “And it made us know that he was taken alive, that he walked on his own two feet. And we also were really grateful that you did it in such a human way.”

She told Cooper about the efforts her family made to bring her son and the other hostages home, including giving hundreds of media interviews and meeting with world leaders.

“There were times when I would just get seized with emotional and psychological and physical pain,” she said. “And I would keel over onto Jon and I would just say, ‘How much longer? How much longer? How much longer?'”

The program showed footage from 2024 where Goldberg-Polin and other parents of hostages went to the Israeli border and spoke to their loved ones via a loudspeaker; “Hersh! Hersh! It’s mama!” she yelled to her son.

Hersh Goldberg-Polin was executed that same day, with Hamas terrorists shooting him six times on the 328th day after he was abducted.

His body was discovered in an underground tunnel by IDF soldiers; he was 23-years-old.

“I wonder, did he hear me?” Goldberg-Polin said on Sunday.

“Do you think he did?” Cooper asked. 

“I think there are other ways that you can hear your parents screaming for you, even if you don’t hear them,” she said.

The program ended on a devastating note. Goldberg-Polin said her mission to bring her son and other hostages home alive was a “failure.”

“Do you think you failed?” Cooper asked her.

“Yeah,” Goldberg-Polin said.

“You did more than anybody could possibly do,” Cooper told her.

“It’s true. And sometimes 100% is not enough,” she said.

Watch the first half of her interview above, via CBS.

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