By Jonathan Allen and Gabriella Borter
NEW YORK Protesters demanding the release of hostages taken by Hamas planned a rally in New York's Times Square on Thursday, as President Joe Biden faces mounting pressure to leverage every diplomatic tool to secure the freedom of any American captives.
U.S. officials have said Hamas is holding some 200 people hostage after the Palestinian group's Oct. 7 surprise attack on Israel, when militants killed about 1,400 Israelis.
While there is no official list of Americans in captivity, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Jim Risch, told reporters on Wednesday that 10 of the hostages held by Hamas were American.
"This is the most sensitive thing we're dealing with here. It is the highest priority here. We want those people out," Risch said.
Thursday's protest in Times Square, organized by the nonprofit Israeli American Council, was expected to draw hundreds of demonstrators and many officials, including New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
Organizers said that 15 billboards in Times Square would show the faces of the hostages and Israeli flags, and there would be holograms of hostage families appealing for the release of their loved ones beamed on the rally stage.
The event comes as Americans across the U.S. are taking to the streets on a near-daily basis to protest on behalf of Israel or the Palestinian people, with bitter divisions re-emerging over the decades-long conflict in the Middle East.
Biden visited Israel this week to reiterate his support and urge the country's leaders to avert a humanitarian disaster as it prepares a ground invasion into the Gaza Strip.
His administration, facing mounting pressure to secure the release of the hostages, must walk a fine line. The task may require negotiating assistance from countries in the region, including Qatar, that have no diplomatic ties with Israel.
Rachel Goldberg, the mother of 23-year-old hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a dual Israeli and U.S. citizen, said the last messages she had received from her son were sent on the morning of Oct. 7, when he wrote, "I love you guys. I'm sorry." She said police confirmed the last signal from her son's phone showed it in Gaza that morning.
"I don’t know that he’s alive, I don’t know that he made it," Goldberg said in an interview in Jerusalem.
U.S. officials have not released names of the Americans believed to be held hostage, but according to media reports Goldberg-Polin is one of them.
The missing people with American citizenship, according to media reports, also include a 66-year-old nurse, Adrienne Neta, 35-year-old Sagui Dekel-Chen, a father of two with a baby on the way, and Itay Chen, who serves in the Israeli Defense Force.
Supporters of Israel in the U.S. have posted flyers displaying the faces of hostages - which include children and elderly people - in New York and other cities over the past two weeks, demanding that officials do everything they can to return them to their families.
In some instances, the flyers have fanned tensions and have been taken down by pro-Palestinian demonstrators.
(Reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York and Gabriella Borter in Washington; Additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Writing by Gabriella Borter; Editing by Frank McGurty and Jonathan Oatis)
