There was a vague hope that he would still be able to return home despite everything. That hope was fueled by a series of images that unexpectedly appeared.

Not long after the Oct. 7 kidnapping of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, CNN came across video footage of terrorists loading the Berkeley-born, Jerusalem-raised 24-year-old into a pickup truck, the stump of one of his arms wrapped in a tourniquet because a grenade had blown the rest off. It was proof of life.

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In April, at the beginning of Passover, Hamas released a propaganda video. There was no doubt about his full-blooded existence. He spoke to his captors’ camera, resting the remainder of his arm on his lap. His once wavy locks had been cut short, reaching close to his scalp. It was impossible to distinguish his words from those of the gun. But at the very end of the clip, he addressed his mother and sister: “I know you are doing everything you can to bring me home.”

As Shabbat dawned last Friday night and his parents turned off their phones for the day of rest, it was possible to imagine that Goldberg-Polin might finally emerge from the ultimate parental nightmare. Negotiations to end the war and bring the hostages home have been fraught with difficulty, even as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears intent on blocking any deal.

But last night, as Goldberg-Polin’s family returned to their devices, they learned that the Israeli Defense Forces had found six recently murdered bodies in a tunnel in Gaza. A little over a week after his parents had eloquently addressed the Democratic National Convention as the tearful audience chanted “Bring them home,” they learned that their son was among the corpses.

Catastrophe is a bulldozer that crushes victims. Horror strips biography of all other detail. But Hersh’s parents, Rachel and Jon, insisted that the world know their son as a human being. That’s how they wanted Hersh to be remembered at worst—and at best, they believed empathy could exist, even hundreds of feet underground in the tunnels that make up Hamas’s domain.

They described how Hersh wanted to throw his arms around the world in an embrace. He loved geography and, even before adolescence, collected maps and atlases in his room. His father hoped he would eventually become a journalist for National Geographicbecause the diversity of the planet and the wonders of foreign cultures set Hersh’s spirit on fire. He loved adventure. Just before Hamas kidnapped him, Hersh traveled around Europe to music festivals. He bathed in rivers and made friends with strangers.

Immigrating to Israel at the age of 7 was a challenge for him. He struggled to learn Hebrew. He desperately wanted friends. But as his mother watched him grow, she marveled at his ease, how he felt completely at home in the world.

After his kidnapping, Hersh became the most famous hostage in the United States. His American parents were not afraid to confront their pain again and again, in conversations with any reporter or politician who would meet them. Like mythological figures, they were doomed to relive their worst day, and doomed to experience it with a clarity that never faded. And despite their pain, they also expressed eloquent empathy for the suffering of Palestinian parents.

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As the war trudges toward its end, Hersh’s murder will haunt Israeli dreams—and Netanyahu’s legacy. In a moral sense, the blame lies squarely with Hersh’s depraved executioners. But Netanyahu behaved grotesquely when given opportunities to secure his release.

More than once this summer, the Biden administration brought Hamas and Israel within reach of a deal to release the hostages and end the war. On some of these occasions, Hamas threw up obstacles that derailed the talks. But at times when Hamas seemed inclined to agree, Netanyahu destroyed the possibility of a deal by insisting on new terms. Frustrated by the prime minister’s tactics, the Americans leaked documentary evidence of his intransigence to The New York Times.

Just as scathingly, Netanyahu’s own defense minister has accused him of thwarting a deal. In a cabinet meeting last week, Yoav Gallant criticized him for pushing for new terms that Hamas would never tolerate, effectively leaving the hostages in Gaza in danger. Gallant reportedly rebuked him: “There are live people there.”

Netanyahu refuses to follow through Yes because he refuses to face the consequences of accepting a deal that far-right members of his cabinet have sworn to reject. He is falling into lifelong patterns of behavior: dithering over a difficult choice, excessive deference to fanatical political bedfellows, elevating his own survival above all other considerations. And now a handsome young man and five other hostages will return from Gaza in bags—lives horribly cut short when they plausibly could have been saved.