Parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin have issued an ultimatum: watch Hamas video depicting hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin being executed to be an eye-opener and take steps against Hamas immediately, they argue.

Hamas released on Thursday an instructional video depicting American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, one of six hostages killed last weekend by Hamas militants in Gaza, that should serve as an “immediate wake up call to all sides,” his parents stated. They stressed the urgency for reaching an accord that will end this conflict immediately. Hamas militants have received new instructions regarding hostage-taking strategies if Israeli forces approach locations where hostages are being held, according to an online forum that monitored Hamas militant activity. Hamas allegedly conducted “psychological terror” against families by discharging distressful footage at planned intervals and thus terrorising families further by exploiting such footage against hostages being held hostage by Israel forces. Goldberg and Polin issued a joint statement, accepting its wide dissemination, while calling upon the international community to “take immediate and decisive steps now” towards freeing those still held by Hamas: they need their hostages released “before it’s too late”. “No other family should go through what ours (and other recently executed hostage families) have suffered,” they stated. Goldberg-Polin’s parents attended his funeral service Monday in Jerusalem with Orly and Leebie who are his sisters – Gil Cohen-Magen / Pool / AFP – Getty ImagesApproximatelly 100 people remain captive of Hamas after some 250 were captured and around 1,200 killed on Oct 7, according to Israeli officials. Goldberg and Polin have voiced the necessity of finding compromise through negotiations to ease both hostage suffering as well as to help Palestinians living in Gaza. Local officials estimate that more than 40,800 Palestinians have died since Israel launched its deadly offensive following Hamas attacks last summer and escalated a decadeslong conflict to such deadly levels that it involved Israel launching deadly offensive. Hersh’s mother expressed hope on Monday at his funeral service that her son’s death might mark a turning point and end this horrific situation all together, saying they all feel “trapped in its grasp. I pray his death can turn this chapter of our lives.” Although initial talks between Egypt and Israel seemed promising, little progress has been seen since. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defiantly rejected intense international pressure to withdraw Israeli forces from an area along the Gaza-Egypt border and maintain that an agreement was far from close; Secretary of State Antony Blinken claimed instead that 90 percent was agreed upon.”