Released hostages Ilana Gritzewsky and Matan Zangauker get engaged

Matan Zangauker, a survivor of Hamas captivity, proposed last night to his partner, fellow survivor Ilana Gritzewsky, Matan's mother, Einav Zangauker, announced on X, writing: "My victory picture."

Gritzewsky and Zangauker met while working with each other. They were a couple for over a year when they were abducted together from Kibbutz Nir Oz. Gritzewsky was released in the first hostages deal in November 2023, and since then she fought, together with Matan’s family, for his return, until he was brought back to Israel this past October, after 738 days.

Last August, Gritzewsky spoke at the UN Security Council. In her speech, she criticized the indifference of international organizations in the face of Hamas’s crimes: “When I was a child in Mexico, I learned to believe in human rights, UNICEF, and the Red Cross. Today I ask—where were these organizations when I needed them most?”

Gritzewsky described moments of severe terror, accompanied by sexual violence against her: "I heard terrorist screams getting closer, and then they grabbed me by the hair. They hit me in the stomach, threw me against the wall. The terrorists hit me, touched my whole body, threw me onto a motorcycle. On the way to Gaza, when they started touching me and sexually harassing me, I fainted. For Hamas, I was a prize. I woke up in Gaza and was surrounded by Hamas terrorists. I begged them not to rape me, I told them I was on my period. That made them leave me alone. I don't know what Hamas did to my body in the time I was unconscious."

Gritzewsky recounted the events of the massacre at Kibbutz Nir Oz to the ambassadors: “We woke up to sirens, Matan held the shelter door with all his might until the terrorists broke in. I lost him in an instant. They dragged me from the house, beat me, humiliated me, and took me to Gaza. During 55 days of captivity I lost 12 kilograms, without medication, without showers, under constant psychological terror.”

Matan’s mother, Einav Zangauker, was one of the most critical voices against the government and became a symbol of the families’ headquarters struggle to bring the hostages home. Last August, two months before her son’s release, at a protest in Hostages’ Square, Zangauker said: “My Matan is going through a Holocaust. If the previous deal hadn’t fallen through—they could already be home. Jews, our brothers, are turning into skin and bones because of politics. We tried everything—only one thing hasn’t been tried: a comprehensive agreement to stop the war. The Israeli government has never put forward such an agreement. Netanyahu—it’s time to do the one thing that can save the hostages. Any other action is a sin.”