OAN Staff Gabriella Sable
11:20 AM – Tuesday, February 4, 2025
Ilana Gritzewsky may have been freed by Hamas, but she finds it hard to move on when her boyfriend and friends are still trapped in the tunnels of Gaza.
“My body’s here, but my soul is there in the tunnels. I can’t go on still. My boyfriend is there, my friends are there,” Gritzewsky told One America News.
Gritzewsky and her boyfriend Matan Zanguaker were kidnapped by Hamas on October 7th, 2023 from Kibbutz Nir Oz.
Following a morning of missile attacks, Gritzewsky received a WhatsApp message saying that Hamas terrorists had penetrated the Kibbutz.
“They came into our home and started breaking and shooting everywhere. Matan held the door shut,” Gritzewsky said. “But they started shooting at the door and in that moment, my boyfriend shouts and says to open the window. Check that there is no one outside and jump. I’m coming after you.”
“So that is what I do,” Gritzewsky continues. “I jump and we start running in different directions. In that moment, I lost contact with my boyfriend. So I don’t know what happened to him.”
Gritzewsky saw a blanket on the ground near her neighbor’s house and put it over herself and hid behind a closet. At that moment, the only thing she could do was pray.
“I’m praying to God. That he helps me,” said Gritzewsky. “But it no help. And I hear the steps of the terrorists closing in on me. They are breaking the leaves.”
“They pull me off from the hair,” Gritzewsky added. “They kick me and throw me to the floor. They pull me up and throw me to the wall. They start with the weapons grinding them against me and kick me.”
They kept kicking Gritzewsky until they put her on the back of their motorcycle to transport her to a house.
The terrorists continued to beat Gritzewsky while they were driving.
“They burn my leg with the motorcycle,” Gritzewsky explained. “They break my hip. They move the jaw. I lost hearing in one ear because of a grenade. They touch me and when they start to touch me I lose consciousness because my body cannot support more pain.”
Gritzewsky woke up in a dark house, with perfume being sprayed into her nose.
“They put perfume in the nose and kick me in the face. So I can wake up,” said Gritzewsky. “They wake me, throw me a hijab and the skirt. So I look Arabic and they can take me to another house.”
When she arrived at the new house, the terrorist told her that this was her new life.
“I get to a home with terrorists. They say to me welcome to your new life,” Gritzewsky said.
“They sit and go and touch me and tell me, I’m beautiful. That I’m going to stay there. I’m going to make a family with them. I’m going to marry them. And I’m not going to go out from there.”
Gritzewsky was released during a brief ceasefire in November of 2023 from a tunnel under Gaza. Gritzewsky finds herself wondering why she was released and not the 76 others who are still being held hostage by Hamas.
“Why me and not them? Is one of the question that is so difficult to answer,” exclaimed Gritzewsky. “Because why I need to live with it. Why is not everyone out? Why am I different? Why am I here? Why are they still suffering? Why, why, why am I different?”
Gritzewsky says the only thing that helps her cope is to get her voice heard and try to bring home her boyfriend and the other hostages.
“The only thing I can think is how can I bring all them home. How can I bring my partner so I can build a family? That, that’s only thing I can do,” explained Gritzewsky.
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