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Trepidation over the fate of other captives has left Ilana Gritzewsky little time for self-healing after her own violent abduction.
March 25, 2025Updated 6:14 a.m. ET
More than 15 months have passed since Ilana Gritzewsky was released from Hamas captivity in Gaza. She still does not feel free. Her partner remains a hostage.
He was captured along with Ms. Gritzewsky from their home in an Israeli border village on Oct. 7, 2023, during the Hamas-led attack that ignited the war in Gaza and is among the hostages that Hamas continues to hold, more than 500 days later.
Traumatized from her own violent abduction, Ms. Gritzewsky, 31, has devoted herself to campaigning on behalf of the hostages still in the enclave, including her partner, Matan Zangauker, now 25, and two men she said she last saw in a Hamas tunnel while in captivity.
They were all kidnapped from the same Israeli kibbutz, Nir Oz, near the border with Gaza — among the roughly 250 hostages taken that day. Now, about 24 living hostages are still in Gaza, according to the Israeli government, along with the remains of at least 35 others who were taken on that October day.
Ms. Gritzewsky said that her captors beat her, then molested her, as they drove her to Gaza. Taken alone, she said she passed out along the way and awoke in the enclave surrounded by gunmen, half-naked, terrified and vulnerable.
The hostages’ fate has become ever more precarious, as Israel has returned to fighting in Gaza in a risky bid to pressure Hamas into releasing more captives, amid an impasse in cease-fire talks.
