US Congressman Ritchie Torres (D-NY) criticized media outlets that referred to the six Israeli hostages who were executed by Hamas last week as having "died" rather than having been murdered.
In a post to X in response to a CNN headline, Torres wrote, "Newsflash for the media: Hostages like Hersh Goldberg Polin did not just 'die.' They were murdered by Hamas."
He noted that this kind of misrepresentation of events in Israel in the media constitutes a pattern. "Hostages like Noa Argamani were not just 'released.' They were rescued by Israel. The rockets did not just 'land' on Druze children and civilians. They were fired by Hezbollah."
"Words matter because the truth matters," Torres stated.
On Saturday night, the IDF and ISA located and recovered the bodies of the hostages Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was an American citizen, Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi, and Master Sergeant Ori Danino, from an underground tunnel in the Rafah area in the Gaza Strip and returned them to Israeli territory.
The six were abducted on October 7th, 2023, and were murdered in the past two days by Hamas terrorists in Gaza. They were found 20 meters underground without previous intelligence. The bodies were recovered a kilometer away from the tunnel where the hostage Farhan al-Qadi was located and rescued last week.
The six hostages whose bodies were found and returned on Saturday were found with gunshot wounds in the head and other locations. No evidence of torture was found.