Einav Zangauker, the firebrand mother of released hostage Matan Zangauker, said over the weekend that she is considering entering politics and that her “life’s mission” is to remove the current government.
Zangauker, who emerged as a ceaseless advocate for the hostages’ release and prominent protest leader, told television host Ofira Asayag on her Channel 12 talk show that she is“entering politics and…will do the best she can for ordinary citizens.”
She said that over the past two years, she learned that “politics in the State of Israel is rotten to the core,” and that politicians “don’t act in the public interest.”
“Fixing the country can only be done by us — the citizens,” Zangauker said.
Asked whether she is running for politics, Zangauker said she is “considering everything” but that she receives offers “all the time” from various political parties.
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While she initially said that she was considering all parties, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud, on Saturday Zangauker wrote in a post on X that, “As someone who personally endured for two years the pain of that terrible failure, the most important thing to me is to send home everyone who had their hand on the wheel on October 7, first and foremost, Netanyahu and the Likud party.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with Einav Zangauker, mother of hostage Matan Zangauker, at Kibbutz Nir Oz on July 3, 2025. (X screenshot)
She said that removing the current government is both her “life’s mission” and “a necessary condition for beginning the repair of our state and our people.”
Zangauker’s son, Matan, 26, was freed in October after two years in captivity. He was kidnapped during the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attacks from Kibbutz Nir Oz with his now-fiancée, Ilana Gritzewsky, 31, who was freed in November 2023 after nearly two months in captivity.
During the two years her son was held captive, Zangauker became one of the most recognizable faces of the battle to bring the hostages home, appearing regularly at protests and employing harsh invective against the government.
She regularly delivered anti-Netanyahu tirades at protests she helped organize around the country, especially at the IDF headquarters’ Begin Road entrance, which were typically louder and more critical of Netanyahu than the Hostages and Missing Families Forum’s rallies at nearby Hostages Square, where Zangauker also spoke.
She has continued to criticize the government’s conduct since her son’s release from Gaza, demanding fully independent and wide-ranging investigations into the failures surrounding October 7 — which Netanyahu and his allies are resisting.
Einav Zangauker, mother of hostage Matan Zangauker, who is being held hostage by Hamas in Gaza, addresses the crowd at Begin Gate in Tel Aviv, demanding early elections and a deal for the release of the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, August 10, 2024. (Vardit Alon-Korpel/Pro-Democracy Protest Movement)
“From the very first moment I decided to speak out, [the government] kept trying to silence me and intimidate me,” she said on Friday, adding that Netanyahu’s office has been trying to contact her and Matan since his release, though they have flatly rejected the premier’s outreach.
She continues to be the target of death threats and online attacks from supporters of the prime minister, whom she accused of being directly responsible for the smear campaign against her and other hostage families.
“I scare him. I’m the one who voted for him from the moment I had the right to vote; I believed in him,” she said. “In the end, he is the one who caused my son to remain in captivity for two years, to undergo physical and psychological abuse.”
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