A mock wedding was staged on Sunday at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv for former hostage Ilana Gritzewsky and her partner, Matan Zangauker, who remains in Hamas captivity, as part of the daylong strike and nationwide protests against the government’s decision to expand the war in Gaza after the breakdown of talks for a deal to bring home the remaining hostages.
Gritzewsky and Zangauker were abducted from their home in Nir Oz on October 7. Gritzewsky was released in November 2023.
Wearing a white wedding dress and veil, Gritzewsky walked beneath a chuppah to the main stage, accompanied by John Polin, the father of murdered hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin.
Polin along with Yehuda Cohen, father of hostage Nimrod Cohen; Michel Illouz, father of hostage Guy Illouz, who was murdered in captivity; and Yitzhak Horn, father of hostage Eitan Horn, held the canopy aloft.
Einav Zangauker, Matan’s mother, in a black headscarf, held a poster of her son next to Gritzewsky underneath the chuppah.
“I love you,” Gritzewsky said, addressing Matan. “I’m fighting for you until you and all of the hostages are back. We’ll bring you back alive. We’ll heal together.”
Gritzewsky, who, along with Zangauker’s mother has become one of the most vocal advocates for the hostages, has spoken previously about being abused in Hamas captivity. In a March interview with The New York Times, she said that after being taken hostage, she woke up half-naked, surrounded by gunmen.
Shortly after Sunday’s mock ceremony ended, missile alert sirens sounded and attendees took cover. A missile fired from Yemen was intercepted, and there were no reports of injury or damage.
The mock wedding took place during a nationwide day of protests and strikes calling for the return of the last 50 hostages held in Gaza and an end to the war that has continued for almost two years.
As part of the protests, thousands of demonstrators blocked roads and highways across the country, as hundreds of local authorities, businesses, universities, tech companies and other organizations staged a strike.
The Histadrut, the central labor union, said it would not be joining the strike, but its chief, Arnon Bar-David, visited Hostages Square in Tel Aviv on Sunday with a message of solidarity.
Also making a visit to the square was President Isaac Herzog, who told the crowd that everyone in the country was united in wanting every hostage home as soon as possible.
“There’s no Israeli who doesn’t want them back home,” he said. “We can argue about philosophies, but truly, the people of Israel want our brothers and sisters back home.”
Terror groups in the Gaza Strip are holding 50 hostages, including 49 of the 251 abducted in the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, which sparked the war in Gaza.
They include the bodies of at least 28 confirmed dead by the IDF. Twenty are believed to be alive, and there are grave concerns for the well-being of two others, Israeli officials have said. Hamas is also holding the body of an IDF soldier killed in Gaza in 2014.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 60,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters.