Hundreds of Americans gathered at Los Angeles’ Nova exhibit over the past 48-hours to pay their respects to six of the Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas terrorists last year and brutally murdered Sunday in Gaza.
Five of the six hostages — Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Ori Danino, Carmel Gat, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi and Eden Yerushalmi — were forcibly snatched from the Israeli music festival on Oct. 7, 2023.
The Wrap reports Rabbi Joel Nickerson led the Sunday night memorial that featured Scooter Braun and Noa Tishby as guest speakers as attendees joined them to honor the deceased.
Cindy Crawford, Eve Barlow, WME agent Brad Slater and “Stranger Things” star Brett Gelman were among those in attendance.
“The six hostages were murdered by Hamas terrorists with several close-range gunshots,” Israeli health ministry spokesperson Shira Solomon told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Sunday.
IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari confirmed events, saying, “According to our initial estimation, they were brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists a short time before we reached them.”
Meanwhile Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to criticism Monday from President Joe Biden by saying that pressuring Israel, in the wake of Hamas’s murders, will only encourage Hamas to kill more hostages.
As Breitbart News reported, Netanyahu, speaking at a press briefing, delivered a presentation almost entirely in Hebrew.
He began by noting that Israel is in an existential struggle for survival against a brutal enemy.
The prime minister apologized — as he had done before — to the families of the six murdered hostages, including American-Israeli Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who were killed as Israeli soldiers neared the location underground where they were being held: “We were close, but we did not succeed.”