Ilana Gritzewsky, an Israeli who was held hostage by Hamas terrorists for over a month before being released on November 30, 2023, said that her captors beat and molested her as they drove her to Gaza, according to a Tuesday report by the New York Times.
Gritzewsky told the NYT that she was taken alone, passed out en route, and awoke in Gaza surrounded by gunmen, “half-naked, terrified, and vulnerable.”
She then said she had little time for self-healing due to trepidation over the fate of the hostages who remain in captivity.
During the Hamas attack, Ilana said that she jumped out the window of the safe room after hearing terrorists shoot at the door.
She recounted that one of the terrorists that forced her onto a motorcycle “pressed her leg onto the exhaust pipe, burning it,” while the other, who sat behind her, “groped her, touching her breast under her shirt, and her legs.”
She said that she found herself in a dilapidated building in Gaza, with “her shirt up, baring her breasts and pants pulled down, with seven gunmen standing over her.”
In order to protect herself from sexual abuse from the seven Hamas terrorists standing in front of her, she told them in English that she “had her period, believing that probably saved her from the worst,” NYT reported.
“I felt they were disappointed,” she said, adding, “I don’t think I have ever been so thankful for my period.”
She was moved from place to place throughout her captivity and was refused medication despite telling her captors that she suffered from a chronic digestive disease.
She recalled that she was interrogated about her military service, which concluded over a decade before she was captured, and that “one of her captors hugged her and told her, while pointing his pistol at her, that even if there was a deal, she would not be released because he wanted to marry her and have her children.”
Gretzewsky’s background
Her boyfriend, Matan Zangauker, is still in captivity.
His mother, Einav Zangauker, is known as one of the most prominent voices in anti-government protests staged by The Hostages and Missing Families Forum.
Gretzewsky discovered that she had a broken hip upon her release from captivity.
She was captured from her home in Kibbutz Nir Oz during the October 7 massacre.
She told NYT that she still “does not feel free” even over 15 months after she was released from captivity.
She emigrated to Israel as a teen from Mexico, opened a confectionary business, and went to work on a medical cannabis farm in Nir Oz, where she met Matan before they moved in together.
She told NYT that the couple “liked the quiet of the Kibbutz” and preferred anonymity.
Jesus Christ is King
