Former hostages Matan Zangauker and Ilana Gritzewsky become engaged

Former hostage Matan Zangauker and his girlfriend, former hostage Ilana Gritzewsky, have become engaged, according to a photo posted Sunday overnight by Matan’s mother Einav.

Einav Zangauker, who became famous for her ceaseless lobbying for her son’s release over two years following the October 7 attack, posted a photo of Matan and Ilana drinking champagne by a “Will you marry me” sign. A giant guitar-shaped building in the background placed the photo at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel in Hollywood, Florida.

“My picture of victory,” Einav wrote. “Ilana & Matan.”

Matan Zangauker, 26, was freed in October after two years in captivity. He was kidnapped by terrorists from Kibbutz Nir Oz with Gritzewsky, 31, on Oct. 7, 2023.

During the attack, the two jumped out of the window of the safe room of their home and ran in separate directions after Palestinian terrorists shot at their door. Gritzewsky said gunmen seized her and put her between two men on a motorcycle while her head and face were covered. Her captors would later confirm to her that Zangauker was also a hostage.

Speaking to Channel 12 in November, Matan Zangauker said that, as he too was driven into Gaza on a motorcycle on October 7, he was greeted by “children, women, old people, lined up with sticks, with rocks, with pipes, and they started to hit me, to beat me.”

תמונת הניצחון שלי????
אילנה & מתן pic.twitter.com/1XQ9wSrJm8

— עינב צנגאוקר (@enavezangauker) December 29, 2025

The first Israeli he saw in the tunnels that day was a dead IDF soldier, and Zangauker said his kidnappers threatened that he would “end up like him.” Then he joined Yocheved Lifshitz, also from Nir Oz, who was kidnapped on October 7 and freed a few weeks later, while her husband, Oded Lifshitz, was killed in captivity.

Zangauker said he was moved around many times, mostly inside the tunnels, and was held sometimes with other hostages and sometimes alone. As a young man, he said his captors treated him as though he were a soldier, despite being a civilian, leading him to be beaten and denied food.

Zangauker has also said his captors would play mind games with him, giving him false accounts of their ostensible battlefield successes against the IDF.

Gritzewsky was freed in November 2023 after nearly two months in captivity. Zangauker said that he’d had no idea that Ilana had also been abducted, and believed that she had succeeded in hiding after they split up. He only realized what had happened when he was allowed to watch TV on the day that she was freed from captivity, on November 30.

“It was simultaneous sadness and joy,” he said. “Because my girlfriend was kidnapped, and I didn’t know it. But on the other hand she went home, she’s safe now.”

Gritzewsky later recounted being sexually assaulted by her captors during her abduction and while in Gaza.

Einav Zangauker became one of the most recognizable faces of the battle to bring the hostages home, appearing regularly at protests and employing harsh invective against the government.

Matan recalled the moment that his captors realized that he was the son of Einav, whose face appeared almost nightly on Israeli TV news.

“The ‘sheikh’ of the tunnel arrived, their commander, and he said to me, ‘You’re Zangauker, right?'” he recounted.

When he answered yes, the captor replied: “Your mother is protesting, she’s turned the country upside down.” That news, said Zangauker, “really made me happy, it really gave me strength.”

He felt happy about the fact that she was out on the streets, “which is better than sitting at home and being depressed.”

Despite the criticism his mother often faced over her anti-government campaign, Zangauker said: “I know that I am here because of my mother, the people of Israel, and our heroic soldiers.”

Matan was finally released on October 13, 2025, along with the other 19 remaining living hostages as part of a shaky ceasefire deal that has largely halted the two years of war against Hamas in Gaza.

Amy Spiro contributed to this report.