Israeli hostage mother fights for son's life

By Michal Yaakov Itzhaki and Maayan Lubell

TEL AVIV (Reuters) - On a Tel Aviv terrace at sunset, for a moment, everything seems so normal. A girl sets her colours and paper down next to mum's coffee cup and pulls up a chair. But mum only has a minute, she has to get back to saving her son, who is a hostage in Gaza.

The girl's brother is Matan Zangauker, 24, who was abducted with his girlfriend from their kibbutz home during Hamas' Oct. 7 attack.

Matan's mother, Einav, last communicated with her son at 10:08 on that day. He sent WhatsApp messages saying: "They're breaking into the homes," "I love you," "don't cry" and finally - "they're getting in."

For 10 excruciating days, as authorities were trying to gain control amid the shock and chaos of an attack that killed 1,200 people, the family did not know Matan's fate. Then came official notice: he was one of some 250 people abducted to Gaza.

Time for Einav has since stood still.

"For me, the kidnapping happened yesterday morning," she says. She cannot eat or rest, knowing he is in danger. "Matan is alive but I don't know if my fight, if my race against time, will bring him back alive."

After giving her daughter a quick hug, Einav is back on her phone, figuring out times for her next meetings and protest appearances, part of a relentless campaign to save Matan and another 100 hostages still in Gaza.

'BETRAYED'

So far, 117 hostages have returned home alive, including four released at the start of the Gaza war, 105 mostly women, children and foreigners returned last November during a brief truce with Hamas, and eight rescued by the military.

Thirty-seven were brought back dead. That leaves 101 hostages still in Gaza by Israeli tallies, at least half of whom Israeli authorities believe are still alive.

Matan's girlfriend was among the women and children freed in the truce last November. Since then, 10 months of successive rounds of negotiations have failed to produce another truce or free a single hostage.

From the outset, the gap has been unbridgeable. Hamas wants negotiations to end the war, which has now killed more than 41,500 Palestinians. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the war won't end before Hamas is eradicated.

Many of the families of hostages say that uncompromising posture has made it impossible to bring their loved ones home. Einav has become the face of a protest movement demanding negotiations to free them now.

A single mother from a small working-class town in southern Israel who raised Matan and his two younger sisters, Einav now devotes every moment of her time to the campaign. She has chained herself to fences, blocked traffic, and descended from a bridge in a cage outside Israel's defence headquarters.

"Matan knows that his mum is no pushover and will not give up and will fight for him until he's home," she said.

She voted for Netanyahu, but says she now feels personally betrayed by him.

"I worshipped him. I trusted in him. I was sure that this would be resolved very quickly, in a very short period of time. I didn't expect it would last so long."

At weekly protests, she is now one of Netanyahu's most blunt critics, accusing him of choosing the survival of his coalition government, which includes parties who object to a swap deal with Hamas, over saving the hostages.

Netanyahu denies politics plays a part in his war policies and insists it is Hamas who is to blame for the deadlock.

Einav says she won't give up, because Matan never would.

"He has resolve that I have never seen. He's a young man who was forced to take responsibility for his sisters because there was no father at home," said Einav. "He's my man."

The hardest moments are at the start and end of each day.

"I put my head on the pillow at night and try to sleep but my brain and my subconscious are busy with tomorrow's fight," she says. "In the morning, I hardly believe that I am waking up again to this never-ending nightmare."

(Additional reporting by Avivit Delgoshen; Writing by Maayan Lubell; Editing by Peter Graff)