The Knesset Subcommittee on Foreign Policy and Public Diplomacy convened Monday to discuss the publication of the Dinah Project report on sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas terrorists, who employed systematic rape and sexual violence as deliberate weapons of war from the Oct. 7 massacre onward.
Ilana Gritzewsky, a former hostage and the partner of kidnapped soldier Matan Zangauker, delivered harrowing testimony about her 55 days in Gazan captivity.
“I am a woman who was kidnapped, who survived, and who came back to be the voice for those still in hell, for those who were murdered and will never have a voice, and for those who are still too afraid. And I will not be silent. I am one of those people who now appear in charts and headlines, but on my body those marks are etched,” she told lawmakers.
“When I arrived in Israel 16 years ago, I was a teenager. I came here out of Zionism, out of love for this country, for this people. For a country built on solidarity, mutual responsibility and one simple promise: that if you fall, someone will lift you up. If you are taken, someone will bring you back. And if you’re trampled, someone will fight for you,” the Israeli-Mexican said.
“But today, after everything I’ve endured, after everything we are going through, I ask you, where is that promise? Where is that someone? Because for 647 days, no one has brought my Matan home, nor anyone else left behind,” Gritzewsky said.
“I was held captive for 55 days, 55 days of hell that words cannot describe. Pain without end, humiliation with no bottom, fear that burns from the inside. My body took the blows, but my soul was crushed,” she continued.
“I remember the gun pressed to my head. I remember them laughing as they pulled me, dragged me by the hair. I remember the dirty hands that stole everything I was. I became property, a hostage they could touch whenever they pleased, leave me in my underwear and bra whenever it suited them.”
Gritzewsky was kidnapped from her home in Kibbutz Nir Oz by Hamas-led terrorists during the Oct. 7, 2023, cross-border attack. Her partner, Matan Zangauker, 25, remains in Gaza captivity.
Originally published by Israel Hayom.
