US President Joe Biden said there is "no equivalence" between Israel and Hamas when asked about allegations by the ICC.

Arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders will not bring peace, but it is beyond time to give justice a chance.

Video released by Israeli families shows several of the young soldiers bloody and wounded near the Gaza fence.

New harrowing footage shows the moment Naama Levy and other women were seized by Hamas gunmen.

You may think you know stories like this one, but it’s important not to become numb to their evil and horror. Hersh Goldberg-Polin was attending the Nova music festival on October 7 when the Hamas terrorists descended. He and three others rushed to their car and tried to escape by heading north. But the terrorists were shooting drivers on the road, so Hersh and his friends instead sought refuge in a nearby bomb shelter.

More than 25 young people were crammed into a 5-by-8-foot enclosure. The Hamas fighters, filming themselves with GoPro cameras, began lobbing hand grenades into the shelter. Seven times, Hersh’s friend Aner picked up a grenade and threw it back out before it detonated. The eighth grenade exploded while he was still holding it, killing him.

The terrorists continued to spray the shelter with grenades as well as gunfire. When the attack was over, 18 concertgoers in the shelter were dead, seven were alive but hidden under the pile of bodies, and Hersh and three others were slumped against a wall, exposed.

Hersh was taken at gunpoint to a pickup truck and in one video can be seen hoisting himself onto the truck bed. His left arm had been blown off at the elbow, leaving a stump with a bone protruding from it.

Later that day, his parents learned what had happened. Over the ensuing seven months, Jon and Rachel Goldberg-Polin have become the most visible faces of the hostage families, relentlessly advocating for the release of all the hostages. If you’ve followed this story at all, you’ve probably seen one of their interviews, or their visits to Congress or the United Nations.

The political and social issues that surround all of this are complex, but as I watched the Goldberg-Polins’ interviews, the questions that preoccupied me were simple: How do two people endure this much agony and still manage to get out of bed in the morning? How are they able to keep up this remorseless schedule when their child has had his forearm blown off and now sits imprisoned by terrorists underground somewhere in a war zone?

[Graeme Wood: A close read of Hamas’s hostage-taking manual]

The resource guides for parents whose children have been abducted in various circumstances are rich with compassion and advice on how to practice self-care: Make sure you eat properly, find time for physical exercise, give yourself some personal space, focus on your emotional well-being, keep a journal. In this paradigm, the parents are the victims, passively trying to cope.

But Hersh’s parents have embraced an entirely different paradigm: They have found that the best way they can endure trauma is through direct action. They will travel anywhere, lobby anyone, talk to anyone who might possibly be able to help them liberate their son. The hostages don’t get a day off, the Goldberg-Polins told me recently when I interviewed them via Zoom, so they don’t get a day off. They have found in the horror an all-consuming sense of purpose, a determination that is striking to behold.

“I have never in my life, nor has Rachel, nor have most people, been on a mission that is so clearly focused on literally life-or-death matters,” Jon said. “And it’s a good thing that most of us don’t have this experience.” He adds that this mission is binary: Their son’s safe return is success; anything else is failure. For them, there is no such thing as a partial victory.

They’ve been at this now for more than half a year. “We both struggle with the challenge of self-care,” Jon said. “My head says to me, You’ll be more successful on the mission if you eat well, if you get your sleep. And I know that to be true, but it’s so hard to do. I tried four or five times over the last 222 days to get some exercise, but when I’m in the middle of it, I think, No, I’ve got to answer three emails and make two phone calls.”

“The only time I feel okay is when I’m working to help save Hersh or the other hostages,” Rachel said. “I’m not feeling good, but I’m feeling like I’m doing what it is that I’m supposed to be doing.”

The Goldberg-Polins have not watched TV or listened to music since October 7. Rachel hasn’t put on makeup or worn her hair down, or done the New York Times crossword puzzle, which she used to do with Hersh. “There can be no normalcy,” she says. “It is not acceptable. And I don’t want to feel good. Feeling good does not feel good. The only time I feel okay is when I feel bad.”

Every day begins with a decision—the decision to get out of bed and run to the ends of the Earth to help the hostages. Each day, the Goldberg-Polins write the number corresponding to the length of Hersh’s captivity on a piece of masking tape and put it on their shirts, over their heart. I spoke with them on day 222. They have a team working with them on their mission to help them free Hersh, but they have found that they have little time for those who just want to offer comfort. A friend asked Rachel if she could come over and give her a hug. “That’s the absolute worst thing you can ask me,” she told me. “I had to say, ‘I’m sorry. I can’t do that, because it’s not comfortable for me.’ The only time I’m comfortable is when I’m working.”

Rachel describes experiencing moments of extreme pain, both emotional and physical. Twice, she says, she went to gatherings with large numbers of family members of the hostages and suddenly it was like she was feeling all of their pain at once. “It’s like someone has shot me in the lower back, and I fall to the ground and I’m in agony.”

“I feel like I’m inhaling the trauma of hundreds of people, and my body can’t bear it,” she told me. “It is an absolute physical reality even though I know it’s through a spiritual and emotional portal that it is entering me.”

Social encounters can be hard. Jon says he sees people’s eyes go wide when they see him and his wife, or they start to cry. “I understand it,” Rachel said. “I understand that we are everyone’s worst nightmare and so we are very scary. It’s like we have leprosy. I know that my presence makes people uncomfortable, and that’s a really challenging place to be.”

The worst is when people come up and ask how they are doing. “It feels like I have a meat cleaver sticking out of my chest,” Rachel said. “Please don’t ask me how I am. It feels so inappropriate—and yet I know that it is without malice, so I need to be more compassionate.” Jon consulted a rabbi who reminded him that they are enduring an experience so rare that nobody knows what to do or say. Much of what people tell them is inappropriate, but they don’t mean harm.

[Listen: ‘Be absolutely quiet. Not a word.’]

Nonetheless, the Goldberg-Polins have been fortified by the thousands of people who have contacted them. “It’s amazing, the strengthening power of hearing from strangers every day who reach out from every country of the world, Rachel said. “They often mention their religion—‘I’m Catholic’ or ‘I’m Hindu.’ To get that from people every day is both strengthening and it’s a responsibility.”

A childhood friend whom Rachel had not seen in 40 years and who now has breast cancer reached out. She reminded Rachel that in the Book of Job, things begin to turn around for Job when he begins to pray for others, rather than just agonizing about his own fate. So she asked Rachel to pray for her in her cancer battle, and they have become prayer partners. Being involved in a mutual relationship in which succor is exchanged has turned out to be easier than just being on the receiving end of someone else’s pity. This is an elemental reminder of one of the crucial laws of effective compassion: Don’t do things for people; do things with people.

On day 201, Hamas released a video showing that Hersh is still alive. He looked pale and worn, his left arm ending in a nub in the middle of the forearm. In the video, which was obviously directed by Hamas, he condemned the Netanyahu government, and expressed love for his parents and sisters. Jon and Rachel were overwhelmed to see him for the first time in more than 200 days. They listened to his voice, not the words he was compelled to utter, and they heard his toughness and conviction. As parents, they also noticed things that might have been invisible to the rest of us—for instance, the possibility that he might be under the influence of mind-altering drugs.

“People have a hard time swallowing it when we say we feel blessed,” Rachel said. “We say to each other in bed at night, ‘It’s shocking how you can have such trauma and unity at the same time.’ We have had so much benevolence and grace showered on us. It is truly grace. This undeserved generosity of spirit, of kindness and thoughtfulness, gives us a lot of strength.”

Hersh is a big soccer fan, and his favorite Israeli team has a sister team in Bremen, Germany. Hersh had visited fans in Bremen three or four times in the six months before he was kidnapped. During games now, fans display giant signs supporting Hersh, and Rachel recorded a video expressing her gratitude to them..

Hersh was named after his great-uncle Herschel, who was killed in the Holocaust. “It gives me hope to think that 80 years from now, Israeli and Palestinian children will be at a soccer stadium together enjoying a game,” Rachel said. “Right now, that’s unthinkable—but in 1943, the idea that Germans would be honoring a Jewish hostage would also have been unthinkable.”

When I logged on to Zoom to talk to Jon and Rachel, I had expected to feel pity and compassion. And, yes, those emotions were there. But I was also struck by the strength and determination that emanate from them. The way the Goldberg-Polins have handled their situation reminds me that while we don’t always get to control what happens, we do get to control our response. They demonstrate that it’s possible to retain an inner strength and a firm rebuttal to dark forces, even in the face of life’s worst.

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Last week, OpenAI demonstrated new voice options for its AI assistant. One of them, called Sky, sounded strikingly similar to Scarlett Johansson’s portrayal of a robot companion in the 2013 movie Her. On Monday, Johansson released a statement expressing her anger and “disbelief” that Sam Altman, the company’s CEO, had chosen a voice that closely resembled her own; she alleged that the company had asked to use her voice months earlier for its ChatGPT service, and that she had said no. (Altman maintained that the voice of Sky was “never intended to resemble” Johansson’s, and he said that OpenAI had cast the voice actor before reaching out to Johansson.)

As my colleague Charlie Warzel wrote yesterday in The Atlantic, “The Johansson scandal is merely a reminder of AI’s manifest-destiny philosophy: This is happening, whether you like it or not.” I spoke with Charlie this morning about the hubris of OpenAI’s leadership, the uncanny use of human-sounding AI, and to what extent OpenAI has adopted a “move fast and break things” mentality.

First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:

The British prime minister bowed to the inevitable. “The judge hates Donald Trump.” Ozempic patients need an off-ramp.

Her Voice

Lora Kelley: From the beginning, OpenAI has emphasized its lofty mission “to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.” Now I’m wondering: Are they just operating like any other tech company trying to win?

Charlie Warzel: OpenAI sees a huge opening for their technology—and in some sense, they’re behaving like any other tech company in trying to monetize it. But they also need a cultural shift in people’s expectations around using generative-AI tools. Right now, despite the fact that lots of people use generative AI, it’s still only a subset. OpenAI is trying to find ways to make this technology feel a little more human and a little easier to adopt in people’s everyday lives. That to me was the salient part of the situation with Scarlett Johansson: She alleges that Sam Altman said that her voice would be comforting to people.

I believe that the company sees its new AI assistant as a step toward making OpenAI even more of a household name, and making their products seem less wild or dystopian. To them, that type of normalization probably feels like it serves their revolutionary vision. It’s also so much easier to raise money for this from outside investors if you can say, Our voice assistant is used by a ton of people already.

Lora: Johansson alleges that the company copied her voice when developing Sky. Last week, Sam Altman even posted the word “her” on X, which many interpreted as a reference to the movie. Even beyond how similar this voice sounded to Johansson’s, I was struck by how flirtatious and giggly the female-voiced AI tool sounded.

Charlie: There are many levels to it. The gendered, flirty aspect is weird and potentially unsettling. But if the allegations that the tool is referencing Her are accurate, then it also seems kind of like an embarrassing lack of creativity from a company that has historically wowed people with innovation. This company has said that its mission is to create a godlike intelligence. Now their newest product could be seen as them just copying the thing from that movie. It’s very on the nose—to say nothing of the irony that the movie Her is a cautionary tale.

Lora: How does the narrative that AI is an inevitable part of the future serve OpenAI?

Charlie: When you listen to employees of the company talk, there’s this sense of: Just come on board, the train isn’t going to stop. I find that really striking. They seem to be sending the message that this technology is so revolutionary that it can’t be ignored, and we’re going to deploy it, and your life will inevitably change as a result. There’s so much hubris there, for them to think that a group of unelected people can change society in that way, and also that they confidently know that this is the right future.

I don’t want to reflexively rail against the idea of building new, transformative technologies. I just think that there is a hand-waving, dismissive nature to the way that this crew talks about what they’re building.

Lora: What does this dustup tell us about Altman and his role as the leader in a moment of major change?

Charlie: Sam Altman is really good at talking about AI in a very serious and nuanced way—when he does it publicly. But behind the scenes, it may be a different story.

When he was fired from OpenAI in November, the board said that he was not “consistently candid” in his conversations with them. If Scarlett Johansson’s allegations are true, it would also suggest that he was not behaving in a consistently candid manner in those dealings.

And when stuff like this comes to light, it actually does cast doubt on his ability to effectively lead this company. The public stance of OpenAI has always been that the company is building this transformative technology, which could have massive downsides. However, they say that they operate in an extremely ethical and deeply considered manner—so you should trust them to build this.

This episode suggests that perhaps the company has a standard “move fast and break things” mentality. That, on top of other recent unforced errors—Altman’s abrupt firing before getting rehired, the resignations of employees focused on AI safety—gives us a view into how the company operates when it’s not being watched. Knowing that this is the group of people building this technology doesn’t give me a great sense of relief.

Related:

OpenAI just gave away the entire game. Does Sam Altman know what he’s creating?

Today’s News

The CDC reported a second human case of bird flu, in a Michigan farmworker. It remains a low risk to the general public, according to officials. A New York Times report found that an “Appeal to Heaven” flag, a symbol “associated with a push for a more Christian-minded government,” flew at Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s vacation home last summer. Alito and the court declined to respond to questions about the flag. In a symbolic but historic move, Norway, Spain, and Ireland said that they would formally recognize a Palestinian state next week. In response, Israel has recalled its ambassadors from those countries.

Dispatches

The Weekly Planet: Plastic allows farmers to use less water and fertilizer, John Gove writes. But at the end of each season, they’re left with a pile of waste.

Explore all of our newsletters here.

Evening Read

Illustration by The Atlantic

Why Is Charlie Kirk Selling Me Food Rations?

By Ali Breland

Charlie Kirk is worked up. “The world is in flames, and Bidenomics is a complete and total disaster,” the conservative influencer said during a recent episode of his podcast The Charlie Kirk Show. “But it can’t and won’t ruin my day,” he continued. “Why? ’Cause I start my day with a hot America First cup of Blackout Coffee.” Liberals have brought about economic Armageddon, but first, coffee …

These ads espouse conservative values and talking points, mostly in service of promoting brands such as Blackout Coffee, which sells a “2nd Amendment” medium-roast blend and “Covert Op Cold Brew.” The commercial breaks sounded like something from an alternate universe. The more I listened to them, the more I came to understand that that was the point.

Read the full article.

More From The Atlantic

A peace deal that seems designed to fail How do the families of the Hamas hostages endure the agony? The difference between polls and public opinion The great academic squirm

Culture Break

Photograph by Imai Hisae. Courtesy of The Third Gallery Aya

Look inside. R. O. Kwon’s new novel, Exhibit, is a searching and introspective book about overcoming the barriers to self-discovery, writes Hannah Giorgis.

Read. “Nothing Is a Body,” a new poem by Jan Beatty:

“I wish I had the dust of you, a grave / to visit. I’m running on your sea legs right now, / tired of the little bits—not even leftovers.”

Play our daily crossword.

Stephanie Bai contributed to this newsletter.

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Al Jazeera’s Virginia Pietromarchi explains why the ICC is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders.