An Israeli Hostage Launched From Gaza Campaigns for the Launch of Others

Greater than 15 months have handed since Ilana Gritzewsky was launched from Hamas captivity in Gaza. She nonetheless doesn’t be happy. Her accomplice stays a hostage.

He was captured together with Ms. Gritzewsky from their house in an Israeli border village on Oct. 7, 2023, throughout the Hamas-led assault that ignited the battle in Gaza and is among the many hostages that Hamas continues to carry, greater than 500 days later.

Traumatized from her personal violent abduction, Ms. Gritzewsky, 31, has devoted herself to campaigning on behalf of the hostages nonetheless within the enclave, together with her accomplice, Matan Zangauker, now 25, and two males she mentioned she final noticed in a Hamas tunnel whereas in captivity.

They had been all kidnapped from the identical Israeli kibbutz, Nir Oz, close to the border with Gaza — among the many roughly 250 hostages taken that day. Now, about 24 residing hostages are nonetheless in Gaza, based on the Israeli authorities, together with the stays of a minimum of 35 others who had been taken on that October day.

Ms. Gritzewsky mentioned that her captors beat her, then molested her, as they drove her to Gaza. Taken alone, she mentioned she handed out alongside the best way and awoke within the enclave surrounded by gunmen, half-naked, terrified and weak.

The hostages’ destiny has change into ever extra precarious, as Israel has returned to preventing in Gaza in a dangerous bid to stress Hamas into releasing extra captives, amid an deadlock in cease-fire talks.