Israelis and Palestinians anguish as Netanyahu addresses Congress amid growing backlash over Gaza war
Hundreds of Jewish activists calling for a cease-fire in the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip were removed from the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday as they staged a sit-in protest against visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Israeli leader's visit has also drawn protests from Palestinian demonstrators, and family members of the hostages still held by Hamas and its allies in Gaza.
Netanyahu delivered a speech to both houses of the U.S. Congress on Wednesday on the state of the war he launched immediately in response to Hamas' Oct. 7 terrorist attack. That attack saw Hamas kill some 1,200 people across southern Israel and take about 240 others hostage.
But the war that has now raged for 291 days has killed almost 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the health officials in the Hamas-run territory, with a devastating impact on children in particular.
It has also been a traumatic 291 days for the families of the Israeli hostages, including Rachel Goldberg-Polin, whose 23-year-old son Hersh was among those kidnapped by the Hamas militants who raided a music festival in the southern Israeli desert on Oct. 7. He lost most of one arm in the assault, but is believed to be among the roughly 80 captives still held alive. About 30 others are thought to be dead, but their bodies still in the possession of Gazan militants.
"We wake up every single day and we hit the ground running, and we run to the ends of the Earth, doing every single thing possible to try to save Hersh and the other 119 people who are still in Gaza," Goldberg-Polin told CBS News ahead of Netanyahu's address.
She's in the U.S. this week, along with the families of seven other dual U.S.-Israeli national hostages held in Gaza, calling on Netanyahu to make a deal to bring back their loved ones.
It's a demand that has been echoed almost daily by angry protesters in Jerusalem, and by a group of top former Israeli security and political officials who sent a blistering letter to U.S. congressional leaders on Tuesday, accusing Netanyahu of destabilizing Israeli and American security.
The scathing letter describes Israel's leader as selfishly prioritizing his own political survival over the hostages' fate and the security of his nation, the region, and even the world. It holds him responsible for the failure to defeat Hamas and to formulate a plan for what comes after the war in Gaza.
"We are all pawns in a game of this handful of deciders," Rachel Goldberg-Polin told CBS News. "Everyone in the region is oozing with pain and agony and misery, and it is enough."
It's been 291 days of suffering for Palestinians in Gaza, too — more than half of 18-month-old Sewar's life. The tiny girl lost both of her parents in an Israeli airstrike. Covered in shrapnel wounds and severe burns, she's fighting for her life this week in an intensive care unit — but laying in a cardboard box, as the hospital has run out of cots.
Goldberg-Polin told CBS News the hostage families understand why Israel went to war, but she argued the military has diminished Hamas' capacity to stage another attack like Oct. 7, and that the priority now must be to bring the hostages back home.
Netanyahu has been adamant that the war will continue until his stated mission to secure the hostages' release — and to destroy Hamas — is complete.
Ahead of Wednesday's address, Goldberg-Polin said she hoped Israel's leader wasn't just in Washington to reiterate those points.
"How can you leave this dire situation [in Israel] unless there's something that's really good, that you want to share," she said. "So, we are hopeful and optimistic that he is going in order for something good to be shared, and I'm going to pray that that's what happens when he speaks on Wednesday, that he's going to be sharing some positive news."
The Israeli leader will meet with President Biden on Thursday at the White House, according to Netanyahu's office, and he's also expected to meet Vice President Kamala Harris while he's in Washington, according to a White House official.