3 hours ago
5
ARTICLE AD BOX
Einav Zangauker has stormed a torrent of hate, threats and arguments with Israeli leadership - all to see her son Matan return home from captivity.
By JERUSALEM POST STAFF MARCH 1, 2025 10:42
EINAV ZANGAUKER, mother of hostage Matan Zangauker speaks, as Israelis protest in Tel Aviv in December 2024 and show support for the hostages who were kidnapped during the deadly October 7, 2023, attack.
(photo credit: KAI PFAFFENBACH/REUTERS)
Einav Zangauker’s son Matan was one of over 250 people to be abducted from southern Israel on October 7, 2023. Now, more than 16 months after the attack, Zangauker’s efforts to see her son returned home have been met with both outrage and support.
Zangauker explained to the New York Times last week that she has lost 25 pounds since her son was taken and was now finding it “impossible to sleep” knowing that Matan is being held in Gaza.
“My eyes burn. I’m like a baby that cries itself to sleep. At some point, I collapse,” she said, highlighting the toll Matan’s ordeal was having on her health.
Battling for her son's return
The former house cleaner had once been an ardent supporter of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, voting for him and the Likud party in every election, the Times reported. Her support drifted from Netanyahu, though, as the prime minister failed to return her son and all the remaining hostages.
While she had once spoken out in support for Netanyahu, the young mother now finds herself camped outside the Knesset, chaining herself to a bridge, setting fires, and marching on the homes of Israeli leadership. Her activism, seeking to pressure Netanyahu into making a deal that would return Matan, has been taken as abrasive by much of Israel’s leadership - leadership with which she has regularly exchanged verbal blows.
Zangauker told Netanyahu “I will personally haunt you if my Matan comes home in a body bag,” and later threatened. “I will be your biggest nightmare” - a threat that MK Naama Lazimi believes Zangauker made good on.
Lazimi told the Times that “Einav is the hardest thing for them to encounter, because she is [Netanyahu and his supporters]: She is the Mizrahi…Likud voter from Ofakim.”
“I used to watch him on the big stages and see his international legitimacy,” Zangauker told the Times. “People eagerly listened to him, and so did I. I used to drink in his words.”
When Netanyahu met with Zangauker and the other hostage families a second time and promised, “We will do everything in our power to bring your loved ones home,” Zangauker demanded he explain what efforts constituted “everything.”
Netanyahu’s response to her questioning reportedly failed to provide her comfort, which is when Zangauker told the Times she felt an immediate shift in her outlook.
Stay updated with the latest news!
Subscribe to The Jerusalem Post Newsletter
“That’s when the thought started to nag at me that something bad was happening,” she told the Times. “I realized that his war goals (to eliminate Hamas and bring back the hostages) were on a collision course.”
Zangauker has also shared spats with National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
As Ben-Gvir boasted about preventing a hostage deal, Zangauker accused him of choosing “to run away” every time she tried to meet with him.
“There are hostages who are now dozens of meters underground. The fact that you want to pave roads, build outposts and settle the Gaza Strip on their blood, without bringing them back home, is not a Jewish value,” she slammed.
In response to the telling off, Ben-Gvir retorted, “In this deal, we’re going to release a thousand Sinwars. Sorry, I’m not willing to have thousands of our daughters raped…”
When Matan’s name wasn’t listed among the 33 released in the second hostage deal in February, the Knesset prevented Zangauker from appearing on site.
When she was barred from entering the Knesset over repeated interruptions, she stood outside and reportedly declared “The prime minister of Israel is carrying out a selektzia” (a reference to the selection process used by the Nazis to determine who would be enslaved and who would be murdered during the Holocaust.)
Zangauker’s efforts have drawn condemnation from speakers on Channel 14. Irit Linur claimed in one show that Zangauker was “very vocal, very belligerent, very aggressive,” and claimed she had been paid to share messages against Netanyahu.
“You sold your son for money!” Avi Saban, a party operative, accused.
Amnon Abramovich, a political analyst for Israel’s Channel 12, told the Times that Netanyahu and his media allies “turned Einav Zangauker and the families of the hostages into domestic enemies. They created a malicious and false equation: either total victory or the return of the hostages.”
The attacks didn’t end with vocal condemnations and online abuse, as the mother was reportedly spat on and cursed at while protesting for her son’s release. The police, in September, also reportedly arrested a man who recorded a video threatening Zangauker with a knife.
Despite the threats and condemnations, Zangauker has attended every rally for her son’s return. When the Times asked why, unlike other families who took turns, she responded, “Because no one can wage this battle on my behalf. I’m like a phoenix rising from the ruins. I shake off the dust and keep fighting.”
English (US) ·