Einav Zangauker says she felt ‘betrayed’ by Netanyahu, who did PR ‘on our backs’

Einav Zangauker, mother of former hostage Matan Zangauker and one of the most outspoken advocates for the captives’ release from Gaza, says in an interview with Channel 13 that she felt “betrayed” by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu following their first meeting.

Her son, Matan, was taken captive in the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, onslaught. Before the massacre, she tells the network, she “was a prisoner to an extreme right-wing ideology.”

She says that at first, the IDF could not give her accurate information regarding Matan’s whereabouts and estimated that there was a 60 percent chance he had been killed.

She recalls being disillusioned with Netanyahu and his wife Sara when they met with families of hostages. She says that Sara Netanyahu came to the meeting with her stylist.

“The prime minister focused, for the whole meeting, on talking about how great he was, how great of a fighter he was,” she says. “He spoke of his brother Yoni [who was killed in the 1976 raid on Entebbe] and his heroism.”

"עשה יח"צ על גבנו, הרגשתי נבגדת": עינב צנגאוקר על היחסים עם נתניהו, שיתוף הפעולה עם גופי המודיעין – והשריון שבוטלhttps://t.co/Ff57iXZ1LW@shamambo pic.twitter.com/V3y78Nv4JK

— חדשות 13 (@newsisrael13) September 14, 2026

“I saw the disrespect of the prime minister and his wife. This crazy PR stunt that was being done on the backs of the [hostage] families. It wasn’t easy to realize that [this was] the person I believed in and thought of as ‘Mr. Security.’ I felt betrayed.”

She adds that at one point, the Shin Bet recorded a message from her in Arabic, in which she was to speak directly to Matan’s captors.

He was released in October, one of the last 20 living hostages to go free.

This year, Zangauker had expected to be given a reserved spot on the slate of the left-wing Democrats party, but chair Yair Golan announced that he would forgo his ability to choose candidates for the slate, leaving Zangauker off the list. She says it was his decision and that she was “obviously disappointed.”

“I understood during my and the families’ entire struggle that only elected officials change policy,” she says. “They make the decisions. They determine the policy. Only entering politics can bring change.”