Ex-captive at Hostages Square: How can a state founded in the wake of the Holocaust forget its sons and daughters?

Released hostage Ilana Gritzewsky tells a crowd of hundreds at Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square that her Hamas captors “hurt me — physically, emotionally, psychologically, sexually — until I reached the depth of fear and humiliation.”

“But Hamas didn’t win,” she says. “Nobody took [my] spirit of faith and hope, and nobody will.”

Gritzewsky was abducted with her partner Matan Zangauker from their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz during the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023. She was released during the weeklong Gaza truce that November. Zangauker remains in captivity.

“They took him from my life, stole my humanity, beat me, humiliated me, left me without food, without water, without dignity,” says Gritzewsky.

“Instead of stopping everything and bringing them home, this government chooses to turn its back, chooses to abandon,” she says. “And I ask you: How can this be? How can a state founded in the wake of the Holocaust forget its sons and daughters who are being held in Holocaust conditions?”

“The government has given up, but we’ll fight,” she says. “Because it’s not a political issue. It’s a matter of life and death.”