Rachel Goldberg stood at the lectern before tens of thousands of Democratic attendees, with fear and sorrow barely restrained by her steel. As she, beside her husband John Polin, prepared to give her remarks, the crowd chanted in support: "Bring them home! Bring them home!"

She cracked, toppling onto the stand before her for a moment, sobbing, before tearfully regaining her composure.

Goldberg and Polin are the parents to Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a 23 year old man who was wounded and abducted by Hamas during the Oct. 7 attack on Israel last year. He, along with eight other Americans and more than 100 other people, remains held by Hamas.

He is, his parents said, a lover of music and world travel. On the day of the attack, he was at the Re’im music festival with his friend, Aner Shapira, when rockets began to fall. The two piled into a narrow bomb shelter along with 27 other people, when militants began hurling grenades into the shelter. Shapira, they said, threw back seven of the grenades before he was killed.

"Hersh’s left forearm, his dominant arm, was blown off before he was loaded onto a pickup truck and stolen from his life, and me, and John, into Gaza. And that was 320 days ago," Goldberg said. "Since then, we live on another planet. Anyone who is a parent or has had a parent can try to imagine the anguish and misery that John and I and all the hostage families are enduring."

"This is a political convention, but needing our only son and all of the cherished hostages home is not a political issue. It is a humanitarian issue," Polin said.

The families of the eight American hostages meet regularly in Washington, speaking with leaders from both major parties as well as both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. 

"They're both working tirelessly for a hostage and cease-fire deal it will bring our precious children, mothers, fathers, spouses, grandparents and grandchildren home, and will stop the despair in Gaza," Polin said.

"There is a surplus of agony on all sides of the tragic conflict in the Middle East," he added. "In a competition of pain, there are no winners."

The one thing that can bring calm to Palestine and Israel, Polin said, is a deal "that brings this diverse group of 109 hostages home and ends the suffering of the innocent civilians in Gaza."

Their speech, and reference to a cease-fire deal in the war between Israel and Hamas marks one of the few times that the war in Gaza has been explicitly mentioned during the convention. The war, in which more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Hamas-aligned Gaza Ministry of Health, has been the subject of incredible friction among attendees and protesters in the streets outside of Chicago's United Center.

The Associated Press reported that 56 people were arrested Tuesday night. The National Lawyers Guild of Chicago offered a disparate number, saying that 72 people were arrested at a protest outside of the Israeli Consulate. Fourteen other protesters had been arrested on Sunday and Monday, the legal observers said.

Inside the United Center, reports from inside the convention allege that people supporting Palestinians and calling for an end to U.S. support of the war in Gaza were being attacked or thrown out of the DNC.

Meanwhile, optimism for a deal between Israel and Hamas has tempered. The AP reported Wednesday that Egypt — a key mediator in the talks, alongside Qatar and the Untied States — has been skeptical of the so-called "bridging proposal" in large part due to skepticism by Hamas that Israel would truly pull forces from Gaza. Negotiations are expected to resume in Cairo tomorrow.

Meanwhile, a world away from the fighting, with their son — their heart — somewhere in Gaza, Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg stared directly into the camera, calling out to their child.

"Hersh, if you can hear us, we love you. Stay Strong. Survive," his mother said.

"Bring them home," his father said.